


Life Saver

by objectlesson



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, American AU, Eventual Happy Ending, Feminine Harry, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Insecurity, M/M, Misunderstandings, Nerd Harry, Punk Louis, Romance, Slow Burn, Sweetheart Louis, Virgin Harry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-01 06:08:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 30,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17238830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/objectlesson/pseuds/objectlesson
Summary: Nerd Boy’s giant, dorky, adorable hand shoots into the air. Louis notices he has chipped red polish on a few of his nails and some tattered friendship-looking bracelets, like the sort you make in camp, and hemighthear the distant chime of wedding bells. He thought he didn’t even believe in marriage because it’s, like, oppressive and heteronormative or whatever, but that was before Styles, Harry (Harry Styles!!! What an absurd, wonderful name! What a perfect thing to scrawl in the margins of all his notebooks surrounded in hearts!) appeared in the bio lab at his new school and ruined all his principles forever.or,Louis is a sweetheart punk with a theater background and a heart of gold, Harry is an inexperienced nerd who plays by the rules. Classmates, lab partners, and eventually friends, what happens when Louis knows he’s in love, but doesn’t know how tell Harry?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Oh. My. GOD, you all don't even KNOW how wildly excited I am to see this story post, so I'm going to ATTEMPT to convey a fraction of that excitement because the magnitude of it is really beyond words. 
> 
> SO. I got this prompt for 1dfanworksforcharity and was THRILLED to write it because it was adorable and way up my alley and I had a ton of ideas for it. I had some other things to complete for challenges and didn't start it until a few months before the due date, and TRAGICALLY, it was around the same time my horrible seasonal affective disorder kicked in. I struggled immensely to write it, which was a shame because I loved the prompt SO MUCH and and knew if I was feeling myself, I would have been able to knock it out of the park. I took breaks and wrote in other fandoms, worked and reworked it, and was unhappy with everything. The due date was drawing nearer which just made me more paralyzed and stressed out and before I knew it I was crying over this story like every day. 
> 
> After venting about it on tumbler vaguely, my WONDERFUL recipient emailed me and sent me the sweetest message that she didn't even care if I wrote her anything because she was so grateful for my existing stories. That message changed EVERYTHING, and without the pressure of the due date looming and her encouragement and kindness, I was MIRACULOUSLY able to finish in time?! I'm SO SO GRATEFUL so her for giving me that freedom. I hope you love this story, I REALLY enjoyed writing it once it came together! I feel like I DID knock it out of the park eventually, and hope you feel the same way! 
> 
> I would not have been able to do it with three important people, so get ready for some sappy and longwinded thank yous: 
> 
> Firstly, to my amazing partner Blake who did numerous read throughs, who encouraged me, and who let me know it wasn't worth beating myself over when I couldn't write. I am very lucky to have someone with me every day who is so kind and so caring and who helps me be gentle with myself when I'm struggling with mental illness stuff. I love you forever. 
> 
> Secondly, to my AMAZING, WORLD CHANGING, SUPER SPEEDY, PERFECTIONISTIC IN THE BEST WAY, beta, Jen!!! I literally would NOT have a story to post without her dedication and long hours and, most amazingly, REPEAT JOB after I botched a document for some reason??? You are amazing Jen and I can't wait to take you out to an expensive lunch or round of drinks and shower you with thanks for all the work you poured into this story, even when it was at its messiest and ugliest. 
> 
> Lastly, to my dear, dear friend Babs, who is the reason I was able to fall in love with these characters again and felt inspired to do them justice. She came and visited from Japan when I was in my darkest and shittest place with this story, and after I spent hours trying to convince her it was terrible, she stayed up all night reading what I had and sending me the sweetest, most amazing, genuinely excited and loving voice notes about the characters and everything she loved about them. It made me love them too, which was HOW I was able to write the second half of this, when they actually fall in love and stuff happens. I would still be obsessing over everything I didn't like about this story if Babs hadn't gotten so fiercely protective about these characters and inspired me to give them the happiest ending. THANK YOU ANGEL I LOVE YOU. 
> 
> ANYWAY!!! Without further ado, my most challenging writing project in recent history!!! Im so glad I stuck through it because I love it now. Second half coming very very soon <3

Louis decides that the best way to combat his inevitable first-day-at-a-new-school nervousness is to just pretend that he doesn't give a single fuck about _anything._ After all, it’s his senior year. It’s not like any amount of suck-uppy niceness or networking is gonna save him from any social disadvantages. He’s pretty sure that it’s actually impossible to make friends in a single year of high school anyway, particularly when you haven’t been playing the whole game with the same kids for three years, finding your place and sticking to it amid the throes of puberty and prom and what have you. Particularly when you’re both gay _and_ weird, like he is. 

He’s basically doomed, so cultivating an air of utter nonchalance is literally his only chance at survival. Besides, his natural state of being is way too nice and trusting, so he thinks it would do him some good to harden up a bit. 

It’s fine. He likes punk music, so he can, like, become a punk more officially and less half-assedly. He cuts the Germs logo out of a faded, too-tight shirt that he’s grown out of and safety-pins it to his backpack. He wears his Skate Tough tank-top and his denim jacket on his first day, even though it’s unseasonably hot, and he’s disgustingly sweaty by the time he makes it to the main office to check in. He squares his shoulders in the hallways while he dramatically hides behind his overgrown fringe. He wears his headphones and blasts Limp Wrist until someone politely asks him to take them off. 

He’s pretty sure that he’s mastered the perfect balance between scary and aloof, topped off with some don’t-mess-with-me and some yeah-it’s-the-first-day-of-my-last-year-in-high-school-and-I’m-new-but-I-don’t-want-friends- _anyway_ swagger when he walks into AP Biology, and it all goes down the drain in a single, fateful moment. 

This is what does him in: Louis locks eyes with the cutest boy he’s ever seen in his seventeen years of existence, and just like that, he ceases being scary. He ceases being aloof. He might even cease being punk, he's not sure. He still digs Pansy Division as much as the next angry gay teenager, but, god, it’s hard to want to smash the system when all you want to do is stare at pale, willowy nerds in knit sweaters and dumb purple Supras, even though anyone with half a brain knows that Supras are the worst.

The boy must feel the Gay Radiation emanating from Louis’s laser stare because he awkwardly turns around and stares back from behind a mop of unruly brown curls and smudged, thick-rimmed glasses. He seems confused, and Louis doesn’t blame him; after all, Louis’s a stranger, they’re at school, and no one, let alone someone so terrifically nerdy as this boy, would suspect he was getting ogled instead of threateningly stared down. 

The thing is, Louis _might_ have a weird nerd-boy fetish. He's not proud of it. He just, like…wants to lovingly steal their virginities and teach them about proper condom use and stuff. He wants to be the guy from the Shangri-Las song “Leader of the Pack,” only gay and alive. He probably watched _Grease_ and _Cry-Baby_ too many times as a kid or something, and he’s permanently damaged as a result.

Upon breaking their searing eye contact, Louis shuffles to the back of the class anxiously, cheeks burning and thumbs hooked under his backpack straps so hard that his knuckles go white and bloodless. He’s smiling dorkily, which is not punk at all, so he tries hard to wipe the grin off his face and resume his devil-may-care facade. This proves to be a nearly impossible challenge when Nerd Boy is craning around in his (predictably front-row) seat to look at him with his dopey green eyes comically wide behind his glasses, his pretty mouth parted and soft and wet-looking, like he’s shocked that the new kid is paying attention to him. He has really, really pink lips. Louis wonders if he had a strawberry popsicle for breakfast, or if they’re just _#likethat_. 

The teacher, a lumpy British guy who may or may not have pec implants, blusters in and scolds the class for talking, even though _he’s_ the one who’s late. Louis settles into his desk, taking his syllabus from the stack that’s being passed around without shifting his gaze from the back of Nerd Boy’s curly, pretty head. His hair is so clean, and Louis bets it smells like the woods or maybe fruit. It’s so nice to see a guy their age without oily, gross hair. Most high school boys suffer from the tragic delusion that Axe can replace a shower, or that shampoo is optional, so Louis really, _truly_ appreciates a boy who uses hair product. Especially when he also has post-popsicle lips and candy-apple-green eyes and Harry Potter glasses and oh, _god_ , he just pulled out a giant binder with labeled and color-coded subject tabs, and Louis might swoon right there at his desk. Organizational skills are just so _sexy._

The teacher is calling everyone's names, his voice sounding incredibly bored and pompous and British. Louis listens for his own name, but mostly he listens for Nerd Boy’s so that he can stop referring to him as Nerd Boy in his head. They near the end of the alphabet, and he’s starting to wonder if by some amazing gay miracle of the universe they have the same initials when the teacher calls, “Styles, Harry?” and Nerd Boy’s giant, dorky, adorable hand shoots into the air. Louis notices he has chipped red polish on a few of his nails and some tattered friendship-looking bracelets, like the sort you make in camp, and he _might_ hear the distant chime of wedding bells. He thought he didn’t even believe in marriage because it’s, like, oppressive and heteronormative or whatever, but that was before Styles, Harry (Harry Styles!!! What an absurd, wonderful name! What a perfect thing to scrawl in the margins of all his notebooks surrounded in hearts!) appeared in the bio lab at his new school and ruined all his principles forever. 

“Here!” Nerd Boy aka _Harry Styles_ announces, and Louis is somewhat shocked to hear that his voice is much lower and smoother than he anticipated. He thought it might be one of those nasal, self-important voices that smart kids in ’80s movies have, but it’s not. It’s like a thunder rumble, dark and sweet and sticky, and Louis thinks about hiding his face in his arms and whimpering, but T isn’t that far after S, so he probably _should_ pay attention. 

“Tomlinson, Louis?” the teacher asks, eyes scanning the room. 

Louis, who has been very good at pretending not to give a single shit all day, has a lot of pent-up feelings inside his body. They’re all Harry Styles’s fault. Also, before he was a punk, he was a theater kid, at least until his dad left and his mom got a new job that moved them all over the States, which meant he couldn’t consistently commit to rehearsal times. So, like, he has this latent ability to be ridiculous and class-clownish at any given moment; you never really grow out of being a theater kid, no matter how punk you are. His tendency to burst into showtunes and jazz squares increases exponentially when he’s in the presence of a cute boy to impress, and, _god_ , is there a cute boy to impress. The _cutest_ boy. 

Louis just wants Harry Styles to look at him again. He wants to make an _impression_. 

As soon as he hears his name, something desperate inside him snaps, and instead of playing it cool or even _normal,_ he launches out of his seat, does a deep bow like he’s a French nobleman, and announces, “At your service!” in a weird pirate voice. He’s not sure why, it’s just what comes out. 

Everyone stares, dumbstruck for a moment. Harry included, with his big emerald-green eyes and flopsy-cute curls, so when the room erupts into laughter, Louis feels triumphant. Harry’s smiling, he has dimples, and that’s pretty much all Louis cares about. He cares zero percent about everyone else in the room. “Mr. Tomlinson,” the teacher sighs, folding his arms and regarding him mirthlessly. “I see you’re a new student, so I’ll attribute this enthusiasm to _that_ , rather than an intent to disrupt my class. However, I do _not_ recommend beginning your time here with those sorts of antics. I don’t know what your other school was like, but here at Canterlot High, we’re serious about studying. Foolishness won’t be tolerated, at least not in my classroom.” 

“Sorry, Mr. Cowbell,” Louis says. He’s just... not able to help himself. He _needs_ Harry to keep looking at him like he needs _air,_ but he just stopped, and it sort of feels like Louis is dying. The class snickers, and he can feel himself gaining allies, popularity, all the things he thought he wouldn't even _bother_ with this year. _Apparently_ , all he needed to do was get a big, dumb crush to act like an idiot. 

“Class,” the teacher drawls. His name is actually Mr. Cowell, not Cowbell, but who could resist such low-hanging fruit?! Not Louis. “Let’s get back on track.” 

He finishes roll call, and Louis shoots Harry faces the entire time, raising his eyebrows and grinning and basically throwing himself onto the floor and offering his stomach up like some desperate puppy. _Love me!_ he thinks, trying to send brainwave frequencies through the power of Gay Telepathy. _I’ll teach you everything you ever needed to know about condoms! And love._

By the time the bell rings, Louis has made Harry giggle three whole times into his syllabus. Still, he hurries out the door before Louis can catch up with him, and Louis’s too nervous and smitten to actually _chase after_ him, so he lets him go and tries hard not to punish himself for allowing the future love of his life to slip through his fingers. It’s fine. There’s always tomorrow. 

—-

A whole week passes before Louis gets a _real_ opportunity to talk to Harry. He tries to catch him after bio, but Harry’s always so deeply and unwaveringly focused, his eyes rapt on the board while Mr. Cowbell drones on and on, scribbling notes so quickly, tongue between pursed lips or pencil in his teeth. If he doesn’t rush off to his next class like a man on a mission, he waits at the Cowbell’s desk to ask questions about the material they covered. He’s one of those serial question-askers, hand shooting up into the air approximately 200 times a period to ask for clarification or, god forbid, _correct_ the Cowbell (who seems to hate teenagers and biology, which makes him a particularly awful teacher, but whatever). Louis always feels a weird combination of pride and arousal whenever Harry points out the teacher’s mistakes, like, _yeah, that’s my boyfriend, the bio-genius,_ even though Harry is not technically his boyfriend. (Yet). 

Harry's not _just_ a good student, he’s authentically and effortlessly smart, too. He talks very slowly and methodically, and he doesn't sound intelligent in the self-assured, pompous way that #gifted kids do, but Louis listens closely to every word he says, and he’s, like, wildly, charmingly inquisitive. He answers questions correctly and clearly does the reading, but he also _interrogates_ things, brings up inconsistencies in the text, links bio to other subjects. He’s smart in an advanced, special way, like he _enjoys_ learning beyond the fact that it’s something required of him as a high school student. Louis _loves_ it. Harry is, without a doubt, the most interesting person in their entire bio class, and not just because he’s the cutest. 

As desperately as Louis wants to talk to him, there’s a slight issue, which is that as Harry effortlessly makes his way to the top of the class, Louis is well on his way to becoming the Cowbell’s most hated student, which throws a bit of a wrench into his plans. 

It’s definitely not his fault. Or, maybe it is a little bit, but not as much as it’s Harry’s fault for making him absolutely compelled to draw attention to himself. Maybe it’s the fault of the entire class for thinking that he’s hilarious and goading him when he should really be reined in, but of course, it’s the Cowbell’s fault for getting so petty and flustered every time Louis derails a lesson. Louis might have lost interest in singing all the cell structures to the tune of _Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat_ if he’d just been sent to the office or something the first time he got too rowdy, but _instead,_ the Cowbell actually fights with him like a child or a peer, getting all red-faced and sputtery with his dumb accent, and Louis just can’t _stop_. Especially if Harry Styles is stifling his laughter with his palm, flushed with delight. Louis’s a mere mortal teenager, after all. There’s only so much that he can resist. 

Anyway, his rivalry with their stupid bio teacher is a real enough threat that he doesn’t want to risk lurking around his desk lest he add another day of detention to his already accumulating sentence, so he’s forced to sulk out the door to his next period without looking back while Harry lingers, unattainable. 

Monday morning of his second week, Louis decides that desperate times call for desperate measures. He’s got to find Harry elsewhere on campus, has to figure out where he eats lunch so that he can properly introduce himself and they can immediately embark on their classmates-to-friends-to-lovers narrative in a very progressive gay high school movie. 

Louis isn't _actively_ hoping that Harry’s the sort of nerd who doesn’t have any friends, but it would make it easier for them to get close. Providing protection from the kids who threatened to throw him in dumpsters in exchange for bio tutoring seems like a fair trade, he thinks. A decent way to break the ice. Louis just isn’t sure if Harry _actually_ gets thrown in dumpsters here, or if Canterlot High is more of the talk-behind-your-back sort of school. 

When the lunch bell rings, Louis takes his (ironic) _My Little Pony_ tin lunchbox to the cafeteria, eyes peeled for Harry. He’s sort of always like this at lunch, scouting him out, but only casually and noncommittally because he doesn’t want to be _too_ embarrassing or obvious about it. After a good five minutes of fruitlessly scanning the tables, Louis’s pretty sure that Harry doesn't even eat inside the cafeteria at all (and who could blame him, it’s gross and sweaty and the jock dudes at the table in the corner are biting eyeholes out of slices of baloney and wearing them on their faces like Lucha Libre masks in some weird, primitive rite that Louis wants no part of), which means Harry is probably sitting outside, on the patio tables. It seems to be where band kids and stoners eat, but that doesn’t mean it’s not Harry’s scene, too. Louis doesn't actually know if Harry’s a full-blown _nerd_ -nerd, or if he plays the tuba or likes to light up, so it’s possible. Louis nonchalantly wanders out into the sunlight, squinting and shrugging off his jacket. _I Whipped His Ass In Tennis, Then I Fucked His Ass In Bed_ is playing from the headphones looped around his neck, and he thinks that might be a little much, so he shuts off his iPod before jamming it into his pocket. 

He’s about to give up when he finally sees Harry sitting at a sun-bleached lunch table at the perimeter of the sports fields. Harry’s there with a bunch of girls, laughing with his head thrown back, the lenses of his glasses glinting spectacularly in the golden midday glare. Louis almost missed him altogether because he was sort of passing over the girls’ tables, but now he feels like an idiot. Of _course,_ Harry is the sort of nerdy boy who’s friends with girls! Of course. He’s cute as fuck and very non-threatening, and they probably all have fruitless crushes on him that he’s oblivious to. 

Louis stands there with his lunchbox, wondering what the fuck he should do, Chuck Taylors rooted to the pavement. 

He has a wonderful mom and a million sisters, so it’s not like he’s _afraid_ of approaching girls or anything dumb like that. In fact, when he was in theater, most of _his_ friends were girls, too. It’s more the fact that Harry isn’t as alone and potentially friendless as he anticipated, and the whole approaching-him-in-a-crowd thing is making him stupidly, unshakably nervous. He tugs at the hem of his Stone Roses shirt, very aware of the sloppy joe stain near the left armhole and the way he feels sort of flushed and sweaty from trekking all over campus in his denim jacket to find Harry. He doesn't feel very sexy or charming right now. In fact, he feels downright _insecure_ , like, wouldn’t it be _weird,_ actually, if you were sitting with all your friends from the last three years, and the absolute _wreck_ of a new kid from your bio class found you and started flirting with you with no preamble or reason whatsoever? It might even be _creepy,_ he realizes, with horror. The _last_ thing Louis wants to be is creepy. 

So, instead of talking to Harry, Louis awkwardly plops himself down on the too-hot concrete a good ten feet away from Harry’s crowded table. The cement burns his ass a bit through his torn, black skinnies, but he doesn't want to make a bigger dick of himself by moving when he’s _just_ committed to a spot, so he just sits there and eats his turkey and mayo sandwich like he totally meant to pick that spot, pulling his headphones over his ears again so that he doesn't have to listen to the sound of all Harry’s pretty friends giggling and shrieking with him. 

It’s not that he doesn’t _want_ him to laugh, it’s just that _he_ wants to be the one making him do it or at least be close enough to witness it. It’s in this moment that for the first time since coming to Canterlot High, Louis wishes he wasn’t the new kid. That he had been here since the beginning so he could be _friends_ with Harry and know his favorite ice cream flavor, his least favorite class, whether or not he’d ever gotten a grade lower than a B+. It would sure make flirting with him a million times easier. 

—-

Louis has sort of resigned himself to a future of awkward, fruitless longing when things take an unexpected turn in bio. 

He files into class and takes his usual seat in the back, eyes fixed on the place Harry will soon be occupying, thinking about how bad he is at flirting, given how good he is at being a boyfriend. 

Not that he's had the chance to _be_ anyone’s boyfriend, actually. Most of his experiences with other guys have been tragically short-lived and fraught with after-the-fact freakouts and denials and gay panics, but hey, if any of the boys he ever liked hadn't pretended they never knew him twenty-four hours after coming in his hand, he _knows_ he would be the _best_ boyfriend. He’d win them stuffed animals at carnivals and kiss them at the top of Ferris wheels and mosh with them at every show they went to together, or at least defend their honor from rowdy stage-divers and hardcore dancers in the event they didn’t want to mosh. 

He’s deep into imagining how cute Harry would look pressed up against a barricade shouting lyrics or maybe just watching the band all wide-eyed with his glasses askew on his nose when actual-Harry sidles in through the doorway, sits down, and eagerly takes out his binder and textbook (which is already dog-eared and filled with post-its, god _bless_ his studious soul). Louis’s stomach swoops, and he feels hot all over, caught in the act of fantasy. 

Moments after Louis composes himself and the class quiets down, the Cowbell announces, “Don’t get too comfortable, today is our first lab, and I’ll be assigning partners. Your partner will be your partner for the remainder of the semester, so I suggest sitting together and making study arrangements.” 

Louis isn't really listening. He's thinking about Harry’s curls and how much he’d like to run his fingers through them and snuggle close to him and share earbuds with him and play him his favorite Millions of Dead Cop songs and tell him how pretty he thinks his dimples are and how _extra_ pretty they’d look if they were dismantling fascist regimes together. He only perks up when he hears his name. 

“Tomlinson,” the Cowbell sighs, sounding pained. “I’m pairing you with Styles. Maybe he can knock some habits into you.” 

Louis is dumbstruck. What sort of habits? _Blowjob_ habits? Hand-holding and movie dates and sappy, excessive compliment habits? He's too busy contemplating the possibilities to even really register the whole lab partners bit. He just sits there, staring at the Cowbell with wide eyes until Harry clears his throat awkwardly and waves a reluctant hand. “Uh, that’s me.” 

As if Louis didn’t know who he was already.

“Come on up here, Tomlinson, and push your desks together,” the Cowbell orders, sounding exhausted already, even though it’s only Monday. “I’ll read off the rest of the list, so listen for your name.” 

The sound of chairs and desk legs shifting over worn linoleum fills the classroom, but Louis can hardly hear it over his own blood pounding in his ears. He gets up on stiff legs and moves mechanically toward Harry, feeling too weird and shocked and disembodied to even be _excited_ that his lab partner is also the subject of his every vivid fantasy. He spends the brief walk from the back of the class to the front swallowing anxiously, his mouth suddenly quite dry. He’s not sure where his theater-kid, punk-as-fuck bravado went, but it’s _gone_. He’s a vegetable. A piece of cauliflower. 

Harry has already pushed his desk so that it’s touching the one next to it, the one Louis’s supposed to sit down in, and Louis stares, _embarrassed_ by how cute and sexy and overwhelming he finds this single, dumb, mundane thing Harry did that he was asked to do. He needs to get a fucking _grip_ on himself. 

Harry’s sitting twisted in his chair expectantly, slow-blinking up at Louis like a cat. “Hi,” Louis blurts. “Sorry you got stuck with the worst lab partner in all of biology history. The Cowbell has it out for me, dunno why he’s punishing you,” is the weird, self-deprecating mess of words that tumbles out of him. _Excellent_ first impression. 

Harry frowns in slow-motion. “What? I don't think you're the worst, I mean, I actually use your _Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat_ cell-parts song to remember stuff all the time. Mr. Cowell is just old and crotchety and doesn't like the fact that you make the class laugh and undermine his authority. But I like it...I don’t mind,” Harry shrugs. “I’m glad we’re lab partners.”

Louis is glad that he’s never been the sort to blush noticeably. He just gets really hot and shivery inside, like something thawing and liquifying. “I can contribute entertainment, you can contribute the actual, scientific genius or whatever,” he manages to get out, smiling at Harry. “But I’ll try and help.” 

“I think making up musical pneumoics is its own sort of scientific genius,” Harry tells him, deadpan, shaky, almost _nervous_. Louis thinks he’s making a very dry joke, but as he sits there silently, waiting for the punchline, Harry flushes. The sort of flush he was just feeling grateful for not being a victim of mere moments ago. His whole stomach erupts into nervous butterflies because, god, Harry was being serious, he was _seriously complimenting him_ on his dumb _songs._ Which Louis _only_ invented to get his attention and perhaps, by some miracle, _impress_ him. He’s stunned this even came _close_ to working. 

Louis tries not to freak out. 

“Well,” he says, not sounding very suave at all. “Thank you. I’ll try my hardest to not bring your grade down or anything.” 

“I’m not worried about _that,_ ”Harry mumbles, cheeks still so wonderfully pink. If Louis were to poke him, he’d leave a bloodless dimple right next to the real one. He tries not to imagine it too hard. 

It’s then that the chatter dies down, and the Cowbell snaps his fingers to get the class’s attention. “Alright, _alright_. Now that you have your lab partners, if you’ll turn to chapter two, the section on sensory perception and the olfactory senses?” 

The class groans and obeys, proceeding to pass around a series of worksheets and supplies, and judging by the elated sounds of surprise, there’s some sort of _candy_ included in this lab. “Do we get to eat them?” someone shouts from the back of the room, and the Cowbell scowls, pushing his glasses down his nose to peer angrily over them with beady black eyes. 

“ _Absolutely_ not, Horan, they’re for the lab. Perhaps one or two after the fact, but _please,_ let’s complete the assignment first, shall we?” he orders, and there’s a collective sigh from the class because, _of course,_ the Cowbell never lets them have any real fun. 

The supplies have just made their way to Harry and Louis’s joint desk situation, so Louis grabs them five colorful Lifesavers, a plastic spoon, and a worksheet from the box as instructed, trying hard to keep his trembling hands under control. Harry watches, his demeanor skeptical. “This doesn’t look particularly scientific,” he grumbles, and Louis tries to smile. It might come out as a scary skull’s death grimace, he’s not sure. 

“Hey, at least there’s sugar, right?” he jokes, lining up their Lifesavers in a line from reddest to least red, tongue between his teeth to keep it from doing anything embarrassing. 

As Harry dutifully reads through the worksheet, Louis tries not to steal greedy glances. He’s _so_ pretty, even _prettier_ up close, with his soft hair and pale, white skin a little broken out at his hairline, his absurdly pink lips and big, clumsy hands. Plus, he’s so _nice,_ so sweet. Sweeter than Louis could have even imagined, sweet like the gooey inside of a burnt marshmallow, and Louis wants to dive straight into teasing and innuendo, but he doesn’t think he _can_ in this circumstance, not with his heart choking up his throat so much. All the other Nerd Boys he’s ever crushed on and seduced were so _straight-laced,_ so unsure of themselves, but Harry’s not like that. His energy is like placid water, stirred ever so slightly by leaves as they drop in from an overhanging tree but never _disrupted_. And Louis would _love_ to disrupt him, to see him come undone, but it feels like he’s not going to be _half_ as easy to fluster as his former crushes, and that makes him nervous. He chews his lip, trying to read over Harry’s shoulder without getting too close. 

“Here,” Harry says, turning the sheet on the table so that Louis can it read properly. They’re both ignoring the Cowbell while he uses too many words to describe their task, which seems pretty simple as far science experiments go. “Sooo…,” Harry whispers, voice low and rumbly, breath warm it’s so close. _Fuck_ , Louis wants to taste it _so badly_ , but he pulls away a bit, lest he get too weird in the maddening proximity. His heart is pounding so fucking hard that he’s worried Harry can hear it. Harry probably thinks labs make him jumpy or something. “Looks like we’re sucking Lifesavers with our noses plugged and trying to guess the flavor? Because _apparently_ we don’t already know how much the sense of smell plays into the sense of taste.” 

“Candy,” Louis reminds him, carding a hand through his fringe anxiously, hoping it looks good. “At least we get candy.” 

“Yeah,” Harry agrees, shifting in his seat, looking at Louis through his lashes. “At least there’s that.” Louis tries not to combust or melt, instead straddling an awkward between-space of sort of _sitting_ there in a partial state of solidity like a jello sculpture that’s been out in the sun, barely maintaining its shape. 

“Right,” the Cowbell says, clapping his dumb hands together. “Choose who’s going first, have that person close their eyes and hold their nose tightly, and then have the partner give them a Lifesaver, one of each. The person doing the test needs to guess the flavor and take notes on those guesses. Then, you’ll do it all over again, _without_ your noses plugged. We’ll convene and discuss results in thirty minutes. Go,” he ends with, like it’s a race. 

Louis whips around to face Harry, eyes wide and bewildered. “So!” he blurts with false bravado. “Who’s going first?!” His jello self wavers a bit. 

“Uhhhhhh…,” Harry starts, blushing, doodling in the corner of his worksheet compulsively. “You seem pretty excited about the candy situation, so how about you?” 

Louis blinks. Now that the candy is being discussed, he wants Harry to have it. He should have candy all the time. Louis wants to _woo_ him, and if it takes feeding him Lifesavers with a plastic spoon to do it, he’s there, fully committed. “Nope,” he counters firmly, grabbing their supplies. “You go first. I’ll record the results and stuff.” 

“Oh,” Harry says, looking a little taken aback as he pushes his glasses up his nose, cheeks still pink. “Um, yeah, okay, sounds good. So, I…close my eyes, I guess?” 

“Right,” Louis confirms, reading the worksheet instructions and putting a white (pineapple?) Lifesaver on the provided spoon. “No peeking.” 

Harry’s eyes shut, and Louis really has a chance to _look_ at him. His soft, pale lids, lashes fluttering against his cheeks, spots of blotchy color where his dimples are when he smiles. He’s broken out and oily in places like any teenage boy, but there’s a clean, downy softness to him, like he regularly washes his face and exfoliates and shit. His lips are pink pink _pink_ and shaped like a drawing on a Valentine’s card, so absurdly exaggerated and plump it seems _impossible_ to think that anyone in their right mind wouldn’t want to kiss him. He’s not androgynous, but he’s very, very soft, almost feminine. Still, he has toned arms, broad shoulders, the slightest furring on his upper lip where one day he might grow a mustache, if he tried very hard and was very patient. He’s the _loveliest_ thing. So pretty, and Louis wants to kiss him desperately, but it’s the middle of the afternoon in their bio class, and he’s supposed to be sticking candy in his mouth instead of writing sonnets about it or pressing his lips to it or doing any of the other stuff he wants to do to it. “Okay, ready?” he asks, holding the prepared spoon up with a shaky hand, trying to keep steady by holding his wrist. 

Harry’s eyes drift back open slowly, and they stare at each other for a moment before his gaze shifts down inevitably to the Lifesaver in the spoon. Oops. 

“Ahem,” Louis tuts, using his hand to cover up the candy a moment too late. 

“Oh! Right,” Harry squeaks, eyes snapping shut again. “I saw that one, so, pick another?” he adds sheepishly. 

“Ah-ah-ah, should I blindfold you?” Louis jokes, replacing the pineapple Lifesaver with a strawberry one, pretending that he’s not losing his mind a little bit. 

“Sure, if you have a blindfold,” Harry replies gently, and, _shit,_ Louis wasn't expecting that; he wasn’t _serious_. His stomach plunges, and he tries hard to think of a good way to dodge this without outing himself spectacularly or else materializing a blindfold out of thin air when he realizes that he actually has a _bandana in his back pocket._ It has holes and is faded from black to navy blue due to sun exposure and repeated washings for that half-destroyed punk aesthetic Louis likes his clothes to have _._ And thank god for that, thank god Louis is a gay punk who carries bandanas around in his pocket like high school is a cruising bar. Thank _god_ he has a practical use for his fashion accessories. He can tie this one around Harry's eyes; he has _permission to._

_“_ I have this,” he offers breathlessly, lifting his ass off the squeaky plastic chair to grab the bandana. “Will that work?” 

“Perfect,” Harry crows, licking his lips and fidgeting, closing his eyes again all soft and dutiful as he pulls off his glasses and sets them down on the desk ceremoniously. “Then if I open them it won't matter.” 

“Right,” Louis murmurs, folding the bandana into a strip before gently, gently wrapping it around Harry’s face and tying it firmly in back. He tries hard not to get any of his hair in the knot, fingers smoothing the curls away carefully. Harry doesn't smell like pine or strawberries like he thought he might, he smells like _flowers._ It’s just as maddening and sugary, just as hard to resist. Louis tries not to inhale too much, lest he pass the fuck out. “This okay?” he asks, voice uncharacteristically gentle. 

“S’good,” Harry whispers, before clearing his throat. “I mean, yes, it’s fine. Let’s do some…um, some science.” 

Louis sits there, trying to figure out if there’s a _not_ -weird way to ask the boy he has a fucking paralyzing crush on to open his mouth so that he can stick something in it. He feels doomed, like time is slowing down, like the world is ending here, in the center of this chipped strawberry Lifesaver candy all sad and lonely on a plastic spoon. “Uh,” he stammers, eyes fixed on Harry’s soft, pink lips, parted every so slightly, begging to be bitten. “Hold your nose and say _ah_ , I guess.” 

Harry does exactly as he’s told, pinching his nostrils shut with his thumb and forefinger and opening his mouth. Louis sort of feels like he’s dying as he brings the spoon to that plush bottom lip. “Okay, here’s the first candy, m’coming in,” he announces, popping it right into the dark, wet slick. 

He suffers while Harry comically, exaggeratedly, sucks the candy off the spoon. “Huh,” he says, Lifesaver clicking against his pretty white teeth, spit audibly slurping. It sounds like porn, and Louis feels his soul leave his body. “Hmmmmm,” Harry continues. “Okay, m’one,” he says around his mouthful, and mortifyingly, Louis has to hold the spoon up again so that Harry can spit the candy back into it. The shiny ring comes out in a film of pink, sweet saliva, and he can’t even fucking _believe_ that this is something he has to endure. Just an hour ago, he thought he was never gonna properly meet Harry because he has too many friends, and _now_ he’s prudently removing candy from his absurdly pink lips for the sake of a _science_ experiment. His fingers feel sticky as holds the spoon, so he decides they should _probably_ have a paper towel or something for all the discarded candies. 

“Hold that thought, I need something to keep from getting your sugar-slobber everywhere,” Louis announces, grateful for a reason to stand up and get _away_ from Harry, with his floral hair and Louis’s fucking _bandana_ blindfolding him like something from a fantasy. It’s _so_ much. Louis can’t stand how good he smells, how soft his skin looks, how much he wants to sweep his tongue over his lips, stained even _more_ vivid now, a bright, glorious, artificial red dye no. 40.

Louis gets himself a paper towel and wills his hands to stop fucking trembling, his heart to stop ricocheting into his throat. “M’back,” he says, tapping Harry on the shoulder gently to let him that know he’s there. It’s only one second of brief, fleeting contact, but it still feels absurdly electric as he plops down into his seat, fingers tingling. “Got something so we can make a Lifesaver graveyard,” he explains, setting the spoon down and grabbing his pencil. “So what did it taste like?” 

Harry licks his lovely lips, as if remembering the flavor. Louis nearly passes out, whatever. “Didn’t really taste like anything, really…sort of sweet and tangy but not a _flavor-_ flavor?” 

“Well, you have to take a stab at it,” Louis encourages, looking at the flavors listed on the torn Lifesavers wrapper. “Wanna know your options?” 

“Cherry,” Harry says decisively. “M’just gonna say cherry.” 

“Alright, noted,” Louis agrees, jotting it down in their provided chart. His handwriting is even more of a chicken scratch than usual because his hands don’t _work_ around Harry, apparently, or at least his fine motor control doesn’t. “Next one...pucker up,” he quips, regretting every stupid syllable of it. 

Harry opens his mouth again, and Louis gives him a lime Lifesaver. The whole spectacle is no less lewd and awful the second time around. He’s not sure that he’s _ever_ seen someone suck candy so noisily and messily, it’s _dreadful. “_ Uh, this’on’th different, but I thill duth know what it ith.” 

“Ok, spit it out,” Louis orders gently, holding the spoon in front of Harry’s lips, eyes affixed to the bright green (same fucking color as his eyes) candy sliding out of them wetly. _God_ , he likes this way too much. Having Harry blindfolded, telling him what to do, sweetly coaching him through it. He wants to be the very best Lifesaver feeder and data collector in the whole classroom. In the whole _world._

_“_ Um, that one was…pineapple?” Harry guesses, wincing. “I know it’s not, I’m just saying whatever. I really can’t tell without my sense of smell.” 

“Fascinating how we had to do this experiment in order to learn this about ourselves!” Louis jokes, preparing the spoon again. His eyes dart to the Lifesaver graveyard, the candies so recently in Harry’s mouth, still sticky with his spit. He wants to pop them both into his _own_ mouth and suck that spit from them, which is possibly the grossest and weirdest thing he’s ever thought, but he doesn't even _care._ He has such a crush on Harry. He wants to taste him. He wants to kiss him. Eating his sucked-on candies is, like, the second best thing.

They make their way through the remainder of the flavors, Harry’s nose getting pink from him pinching it for each tasting, his tongue turning a purple-brown from the color mixture, lips still pink-red as ever. Louis loosens up a little bit and falls into his natural defense mechanism of making a joke out of everything, so by the time they finish, he has Harry in stitches, dimples out as he cackles. Louis feels like he won the lottery. 

“Okay, so, you got, um, one flavor right with your nose plugged and every flavor right with your nose not plugged, so it’s safe to say,” he continues, putting on a fake British accent so that he sounds as pompous as the Cowbell, “that the sense of smell is absolutely _integral_ to our sense of taste! Conclusive evidence!” He then pretends to drink some tea with a pinched face, pinky up, and Harry giggles as he puts his glasses back on, blinking. 

“I don’t even care if it was a dumb experiment, I got candy, and you’re funny. It was cool to hang out,” Harry tells him, eyes fixed on the top of this desk where he rubs his finger idly over a carving of someone else's initials. “I know you’re new and probably have a bunch of people already inviting you to stuff, trying to be your friend, since, like, you’re really cool,” he rambles, turning even redder, and Louis's hand flies to his chest in a failed attempt at soothing the sudden, maddening tattoo of his heart. “But if you ever want to get together to study bio or whatever, I’d like that.” 

Louis’s stomach clenches so hard that he feels like he can’t even speak for a moment, hands balled into fists under the table before he frantically wipes sweat from them on his skinnies. “Uh, yeah, m’never gonna say no to the smartest kid in the class offering to be my study-buddy,” he manages to get out, even-voiced as if he’s not about to leap out of his desk in elation. “Here, this is my number,” he adds, taking Harry’s worksheet and writing it down before signing his name with an X-eyed smiley face and a (mostly ironic) anarchy sign. He wants to add a heart, but that would probably be too much. “Text me, and we can figure out a time to chill or do our homework together.” 

“Really?” Harry asks. He sounds genuinely surprised that Louis wants to hang out, which maybe is a good thing, like Louis isn’t _as_ embarrassingly obvious as he feels. “You’d actually like to?” 

“Of course!” Louis says hastily, practically _shoving_ the worksheet at him.“What, you aren't used to classmates begging to study with you?” 

“No,” Harry replies, blushing, sneaking his iPhone out into his lap subtly so that he can take down the number. “M’not.” 

The Cowbell starts snapping his fingers again, trying to get the class’s attention as he stands in front of the whiteboard, his face dually bored and frustrated. Louis feels like time is rapidly slipping out of his control, so he turns to Harry, heart in his throat. “You should be,” he tells him, plucking an orange Lifesaver from the graveyard and popping it into his mouth. It was recently in _Harry’s_ mouth, so it's still warm and sticky. “Stupid to let candy go to waste,” Louis slurs around the sweetness, feeling delirious at the taste of it, heat coiling in his stomach, the knowledge that it was once in Harry's delectable mouth making him dizzy. 

“Oh, god,” Harry gasps, shaking his head. “You’re not…grossed out? Because of the germs?” he asks helplessly, yanking at the white collar of his t-shirt as if this whole conversation makes him hot.

“Nah,” Louis responds, sticking his tongue out, sneering at the same time he’s dissolving, like this whole conversation _doesn’t_ make him hot. “Don’t care...rather’it get eaten, you know? Fuck capitalist waste and all that.” 

“Oh-kay then,” Harry stammers, his cheeks so pink. “As long as you don’t mind.”

Louis grins and sucks and grins some more. It’s gonna take him fucking _months_ to recover from this bio lab. 

—-

Harry texts him that night. 

It’s not anything big, just a smiling emoji and _Harry!!_ which is remarkably charming but _still._ Louis is elated. He cradles his phone as he pads barefoot around the apartment, headphones looped around his neck and MDC playing loud enough that his sisters cringe when they get close to him on their travels to the kitchen. “That sucks, Louis, turn it off,” Lottie gripes as he flicks her affectionately in the side. 

“Shh, I’m in love, I can do whatever I want,” he tells her. “It’s a rule.” 

“Gross,” she grimaces, stuffing her face with a Rice Krispie bar. “Who is he?” she asks, spewing crumbs all over him. 

“His name is Harry, which is short for Harold, maybe, and he’s a total nerd...glasses, Polo shirts, the whole shebang. Nothing cool for miles around...he's perfect,” he rambles, well aware that he’s exaggerating. Lottie is still at the age where she’s absolutely repulsed by anyone who isn’t clean, polished, Zac-Efron-in- _High-School-Musical_ levels of cute, so naturally, she wrinkles her nose. 

“Why do you like guys like that, Louis?” she asks judgmentally, crunching dramatically. “Date someone who’s cool, like you. My friend Miranda has a gay brother, you know...he’s into your music, like, Fall Out Boy is his favorite band,” she offers. 

Louis makes a puking sound. “Come back to me when you know literally anything about anything,” he snarks, stealing the remainder of her Rice Krispie treat and pretending to take a bite as she shrieks. He hands it back to her with a fake smile. “You obviously have no idea what my taste is.” 

Lottie sticks her tongue out in response. “What music does this _Harold_ like, then?” she asks, making a face that Louis makes right back. “I have no idea,” he says. “Believe it or not, I don't even _care_ what music he likes, he’s _that_ nice and cute and special. He could like classical jazz, and I’d still wanna blow him.”

Lottie screams and goes running for their mom, which is fine. Louis wants her opinion on this whole thing anyway _._

_“_ I talked about a blowjob in front of Lottie, I’m sorry,” Louis recites automatically when their mom appears at the foot of the stairs, looking about ten different sorts of exhausted. “But I like a boy in my bio class, and I had to feed him Lifesavers during lab today, and it was traumatic. _Traumatic, mom.”_

_“_ Oh, dear,” she sighs, sneaking in for a side-armed hug. “Pease tell me there have been no actual blowjobs,” she asks, cringing even as she says it. “I can be the supportive mom you need, but I _can’t_ live through knowing my little boy _—”_

“I haven't even kissed him, I’ve barely _talked_ to him,” Louis admits, hopping up onto a barstool in the kitchen and crossing his legs, pouting at his mom. It’s easier to be uncomplicatedly honest now that Lottie’s gone and there's no real audience. “I don't know what to _do._ Like, I freeze up around him,” he explains, putting his face in his hands. “It’s stupid...I had to feed him candy in the name of science today.” 

“Aw, babe,” she coos, sidling over and kissing his hair. “Just give it time. He’s bound to fall in love with you, they always do.” 

He purses his lips. She’s only saying that because she’s his mom; very few boys have been in love with him, unless there’s something they’re all not telling him. “I dunno...I don’t have the _best_ reputation in that class.” 

“Does he know that he's gay yet?” she asks, peering at him through narrowed eyes. 

“Um,” Louis starts, taking a minute to formally consider the evidence that he's unwittingly gathered simply by observing Harry. His floral shampoo, his clean skin, his pressed pastel Polos. The fact that he hangs out with girls and those chipped, painted nails from the first day of school. 

“M’pretty sure that he’s gay? But I’m not sure if he _knows_ that he is. He’s maybe thought about it, but, like…it’s hard to _actually_ know.” 

“Well,” his mom says, cocking her head. “If he knows, then he’s going to love you, Louis. How could he not? You’re cute, you’re funny, you have that amazing singing voice, you dress well _even_ if I don’t understand why you take a cheese grater to the knees of your brand-new jeans,” she sighs wistfully, her gaze falling on the tattered bits of his pants. “You just need to spend more time with him. Invite him over for dinner!” 

This is her suggestion for everything, so Louis takes a few minutes to swallow, for the sentiment to sink in, before he attacks it blindly. “Okay, well, I’ll consider that a _long_ -term goal, but in the meantime, is _one day_ _after_ too soon to text someone you just conducted a flirtatious science experiment with?” 

She strides over to him, stealthily pinches his cheek, and straps on her _Kiss the Cook_ apron in a single, determined motion. “Okay, fine, yes, a text is a good place to start.” 

And he can’t argue with that, so he gets his phone out of his pocket and sighs dramatically, flipping his fringe out of his eyes. “Will you help me draft it?” he asks, drumming his fingers on the counter hopefully. “I’ll clean the stove after dinner.” 

His mom eyes him, feigning sternness. “I’ve been asking you to do that for weeks, Lou. Drive Lottie to her dance class tomorrow after school _and_ clean the stove, and you have a deal.” 

“Deal,” he echoes, hopping off the barstool and looping his arms around her waist to squeeze her. “So, can I jump right into soliloquies about how cute his glasses are, or is starting off with, ‘hi it’s lou from your bio class,’ a better bet?” 

“Before you write him any poetry, let’s feel it out first,” she suggests, steering Louis to the cutting board and putting a knife in his hand. “And while we’re brainstorming, how about you chop me some onions?” 

As Louis plays sous chef for his mom, he texts Harry. His hands get sweaty on the knife handle, and he feels sort of sick while he waits for a reply, trying not to get his hopes up. Thankfully, Harry responds within minutes, the vibration from the phone causing Louis to jump and drop a clove of garlic on the floor. 

“What did he say?!” his mom asks, craning her neck away from where she’s draining pasta at the sink, billows of steam enveloping her. 

“Uh, that he’s happy I texted him and that we’re lab partners,” Louis gushes, feeling heat rise in his face as he reads and rereads it. 

“He sounds _gay_...like he likes you. Aren’t boys usually, ‘ _Hey, brah, sup_?’ How do teenage boys talk these days, anyway? I only have you as a frame of reference, and you’re special,” she smiles fondly, sweeping in and stealing another cheek-kiss. Louis doesn’t mind; he learned a long time ago that it’s way more punk to love your mom than it is to act embarrassed by her all the time. 

“Should I invite him over? For, like, a study session or something? What do I do?” he asks, hand over his chest again. _God_ , Harry Styles is going to give him a fucking heart condition. 

“Yes, and I’ll make sure there are freezer snacks. Any day except tomorrow because you agreed you’d drive Lottie—”

“To dance class, _yes_ , I remember. Okay, uh, here...does this sound weird?” Louis asks, hammering out a response and showing it to his mom. 

They make some finishing touches before sending it off, and then he’s way too nervous to chop, so he just sits at the counter with his head in his arms whimpering while his mom dumps the bag of frozen meatballs into a pan and preheats the oven. Louis loves spaghetti, but he’s pretty sure he’s gonna be too nauseated and anxiety-stricken to eat tonight. Or maybe ever again. Who knows. “Jesus, Louis, drink some water or something,” his mom laughs, handing him a glass and feeling his head with her smooth, cool palm. “This is the worst crush you've had since that football boy your freshman year.”

“It’s worse than him, way worse,” he groans, sagging against her. “His hair is so curly, his voice is so low...he’s so _nice_. I need to listen to the Smiths.” 

His mom sighs and puts on _Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want_ because she knows that it’s his self-pity over boys anthem. They’re not two bars into the first verse when Harry messages him back. If Louis had a clove of garlic, he would certainly have dropped it again, so it’s a good thing he’s empty-handed. “Oh, god,” he wails, clutching at the collar of his own shirt. “He’s free Saturday...he wants to do homework together.” 

“Homework, romantic,” she jokes, hugging Louis. “I’ll get juice boxes and pizza rolls! But right now I need you to taste this sauce for me.” 

Louis’s appetite is back, so he’s happy to help. “Delicious!” he proclaims. 

His mom makes a motion to high-five him, then fakes him out and pulls him in for a hug instead, crushing him so hard that his breath huffs out painfully. “I can tell he already likes you,” she says with the blind, easy confidence of a mom. 

“Yeah, we’ll see,” he grumbles, pretending to be cautious even as his heart is prematurely soaring. _Please, please, please, let me get what I want._

—-

The rest of the school week crawls by, but Louis manages to make tentative friends with a goth kid named Zayn, a boy who sports eyeliner, has an illegal tattoo, and wears the same torn Sisters of Mercy shirt to school nearly every day, though he still somehow always manages to smell nice, like incense and clove cigarettes. They spend their lunches discussing the merits of glue vs. egg whites in the field of mohawk durability and longevity, whether or not Manic Panic actually lasts longer than Special Effects, what Joy Division record is the best for when you’re pissed off vs. heartbroken, and if you could categorize horror punk bands like The Misfits as goth (Louis says yes; Zayn just keeps repeating an emphatic _no_ in response to every one of his arguments). He has a beat-up bluetooth speaker, so they play Depeche Mode and Nine Inch Nails at lunch, the only two bands they agree aren’t too sad for public consumption. It’s nice to have a friend, and as far as Louis can tell, Zayn’s either very open-minded or also _some_ sort of gay, so he tells him about Harry, about the impending date-not-date that his mom helped him plan. 

“It could go one of two ways,” Zayn notes sagely, very carefully rolling a joint for after school, the whole operation hidden behind his backpack so the lunch proctors won't notice. “He could be the sort of nerd who’s secretly really kinky and spends all his time on weird message boards looking at _My Little Pony_ porn or whatever. In my experience, guys like that aren’t very concerned about who’s giving the blowjob as long as a blowjob is happening. So you have that going for you,” he explains, though Louis is pretty sure this isn't actually a good thing. “Or, he could be the really, really uptight sort of nerd who has never jacked off in his whole life. You'd have to corrupt him,” he finishes, waggling his eyebrows and tucking the finished joint behind his ear. 

“I don’t want to _corrupt him,”_ Louis argues, frowning. “I want to date him. And put Lifesavers in his mouth again. I really like him.” 

“Unfortunately, most guys our age who aren’t like us or who aren’t in glee club or whatever aren’t gonna _date_ another guy until they’re in college and social politics matter less,” Zayn offers. “Like, _studious_ guys and jocks? The best you’re gonna get is a guilty drunken hookup at some party where you _may_ or may not get beaten up or ghosted for all eternity afterward. You might have to lower your standards, Lou.” 

“I think you’re generalizing,” Louis tells him, even though he knows he might be right. There are _signs,_ though, that Harry might be less of a flight risk than Zayn thinks he is. 

For one, there's the nail polish. He doesn’t wear it regularly, and it never seems intentional or manicured, just little bits of it around the nail bed like he painted them and then chipped it all off before school so no one but Louis (who watches him incessantly) would notice. There’s also the way he carries himself, particularly with his friends. Louis tries not to be weird or bother him at lunch, particularly now that he has a proper friend of his own, but when he and Zayn are carrying their trays to a table to sit, if he passes Harry and his group, he’ll wave at him or shout, “Lab partner! Oi oi!” if he’s feeling brave. Harry always smiles at him, big and dimply and dorky, and, _god,_ every time it makes Louis’s insides clench and renders him uselessly giggly for the remainder of the lunch period (much to Zayn’s chagrin, as it interferes with his ability to maintain a look of effortless apathy). 

Regardless, Louis is smitten, so he ends up sneaking glances at Harry’s table during lulls in conversation, and more often than not, he's laughing about something, telling some story and gesturing, wrists soft, curls bouncing. There’s nothing about his appearance in and of itself that makes him seem overtly feminine (except for those _lips_ , but that's, like, _nature_ not behavior), but the way he moves, the way he links arms with other girls, the way he hugs them and lies in their laps is decidedly, actively non-threatening. He doesn’t _seem_ like a straight guy hanging out with girls and teasing them for attention or whatever, he seems like a gay nerdy kid with a bunch of female friends. He’s _one_ of the girls, sitting seamlessly with them in a way that would make him hard to find in the crowd were Louis not so obsessed that he’s become a fucking expert at it. 

He’s not sure what it means, really, or if it counts as evidence that Harry might be gay or just…not straight in some way. It could just be wishful thinking. But at the same time, there are those _things_ you pick up on about a person, when you’re a certain way and you move through the world looking for connections with people who are the same certain way. It’s a tacit understanding, a language without words. It’s beyond stereotypes, there’s something about him that Louis can _feel._ He’s pretty sure he wouldn’t have such a terrible crush on him if he _weren’t_ reading those silent signals in some way. _Nature is a language, can’t you read?_ he thinks, sitting beside Zayn and stealing glances at Harry through the bits of fringe that have fallen into his face while he uses a paper clip to carve a Germs circle into the plastic of the table. 

—-

Louis spends the week watching him during class, too, resting his chin on his arms and trying not to seem like he’s staring, like he’s looking for clues (even if he is). In addition to the nail polish, Harry _once_ came back from lunch with two really cute little French braids, probably woven into his curls by one of his friends since they’re always doing hair at lunch, lounging on top of each other, finger-combing and tying it up into buns or crowding around a single girl and sectioning off chunks into bits to braid. It makes his glasses look even more prominent on his face without the curls to hide behind, his forehead high and lovely. Louis wants so badly to compliment him, but the girl who sits next to Harry on the other side beats him to it, and he pats his head shyly, blushing. “Miranda did it, I didn't have time to take it out.” 

“Looks pretty,” Louis blurts, and both Harry and the girl turn around to stare at him. He thinks it came out too loud, too brash with nerves, and that makes it sound like he’s teasing Harry, which is the _last_ thing he wants. “It’s very punk,” Louis adds hastily. “Like, smashing the gender binary and all that.” 

Harry’s expression softens a little, his blush deepening, and Louis feels a bit better. Once Harry sits down and the Cowbell begins the laborious process of quieting the class before his lecture, he tears off a bit of binder paper and writes, _hey I hope it didn't sound like i was joking i genuinely like it!!! used 2 have my hair dyed like fire truck red a few years ago._ Then he folds it up and passes it to Harry, who fails to notice it sitting on the edge of his desk for a whole nerve-wracking minute before his gaze falls on it and he eyes it cautiously, sneaking it into his lap to read.

It takes him a long time to pass back, which is unsurprising because he’s an adorable goody-two-shoes who has probably never seen the inside of a detention classroom in his entire life. He waits until the Cowbell’s back is turned before he drops the note into Louis’s lap with a dramatic, terrified flair. Louis unfolds the paper, fingers shaking, to read, _Thanks :) I’m mostly only friends with girls so they do my hair sometimes. I'm glad you don’t think it’s weird. I’d like to see your red hair sometime, do you have pictures? —Harry_

Louis’s heart swells so huge so quickly that he feels like his chest is in danger of splitting. The fact that Harry signs his passed notes as if anyone else could have been responsible for the message is the single most adorable and oddly attractive thing Louis has ever seen. He’s never seen such a dorky and particular note-passing technique. Harry is _one of a kind,_ and Louis is weak in the knees. Plus, there’s the smiley face and the proper punctuation. He’s just so cute, the absolute dreamiest. Louis wants a _novel’s_ worth of Harry notes. 

_I do!! i’ll show u Saturday :)_ he writes, passing it back. Harry smiles at him, and he smiles back, and _thankfully_ the Cowbell turns around and asks a question before Louis can actually combust. 

Harry comes to class once more with French braids during the week, and Louis makes sure to tell him again how punk he looks. It’s not flirting, not exactly, but it feels important anyway. He also notices the way Harry dresses isn’t _always_ as polished and preppy as he initially thought. Usually he wears khakis or jeans with a tucked-in pastel Polo and a blazer, but on Thursday, when it was a little cloudy out, he wore an oversized lavender sweater cuffed around his delicate wrists, and Louis just about cried at how soft he looked. Today, he’s wearing a white t-shirt with a loose-scoop neck that dips down far enough that Louis can see his collar bones, can see that he’s wearing a thin chain around his neck with some sort of charm. He tries to make it out and thinks about asking, but he’s so fucking nervous and dizzy at this new expanse of skin that’s been hiding under Harry’s starched collars all this time that he can barely make himself speak. 

They do a lab together, something about genes and gel electrophoresis and the show _CSI_ , but paying attention is a tremendous struggle when Harry Styles’s pale, lovey sternum is _right there._ Plus, their hands keep brushing, and Louis’s brain absolutely flatlines every single time. “What?” he asks, because Harry just asked him something. 

“Your shirt,” he repeats, pointing, cheeks pink under the lower rim of his glasses. “I was wondering what it’s from.” 

Louis looks down, having completely forgotten that he’s wearing a G.L.O.S.S. shirt, off-white and faded, with little screenprinted lipsticks and nailed baseball bats all over it. “Oh, it’s a band,” he says, suddenly shy, wondering if Harry is ready to hear about trans-fronted queercore, or if he should save that for the second (hopefully official, not homework-related) date. “Girls Living Outside Society’s Shit. They’re…really badass. They're not together anymore, though, because the hardcore scene is the worst,” he over-explains, never good at holding his tongue when _anyone_ asks him about the music he likes. 

“It’s a girl band?” Harry asks, raising his eyebrows and looking genuinely curious. Maybe Harry _really_ likes girls. Maybe Louis’s wrong about everything. 

 

“Yeah,” Louis answers cautiously, adjusting his shirt and feeling awkward now that Harry’s eyes are on him, climbing over his chest, studying the design. He squirms. “Sort of, anyway...uh, if you want, I can play them for you on Saturday, I mean, tomorrow,” he corrects, heart leaping into his throat. 

“We have so many things planned for tomorrow,” Harry reminds him. “We won’t have time for homework.” 

It’s true. In addition to showing Harry pictures of his red hair and apparently playing him G.L.O.S.S.’s EP, they also have plans to have an extensive shit-talking session about the Cowbell and watch some old _Schoolhouse Rock_ videos about bio on YouTube. Harry’s an absolute fucking nerd who knows all the _Schoolhouse Rock_ songs, which is probably why he was so impressed by Louis’s cell-parts jingle. Louis is so fucking excited, but at the same time, he’s absolutely _terrified._ This week has been excruciating, and he’s _sure_ that Harry will cancel on him the closer they get to the weekend and the more they actually get to know each other. 

“We’ll finish the homework, promise,” Louis assures him, crossing his heart. 

“Pinky promise?” Harry asks, holding his hand out, fingers curled into a fist save for his pinky. Louis stares, sort of blown away by how long and knobby his fingers are, what big hands he has given his air of delicacy and softness. He recovers quickly and curls his own pinky around Harry’s, linking them, his heart in his throat. Harry’s skin is dry and cool. 

“Oi, cold hands,” he yelps, holding on a little longer than necessary before letting go, the whole of his hand feeling electrified. “I pinky promise. We’ll do homework _and_ lots of fun stuff. _And_ you can make fun of my weird, short-lived red-hair phase.” 

“M’looking forward to it,” Harry smiles, wiping his hands on his jeans. 

Louis smiles back. “I am, too,” he says, voice surprisingly even considering all he wants to do is rip his beanie off, hide his face inside, and scream. _Just one more night_ , he thinks, hoping he’s not getting all worked up over nothing. 

—-

Harry’s been at Louis’s house for a whole hour before Louis’s heart slows down enough for him to do _anything_ but pretend to thumb through his bio book messily. He’s a fucking _disaster_. They’re sitting at opposite ends of the kitchen table, sharing a plate of pizza rolls (sharing is a somewhat generous word, considering Louis has only picked at one and Harry has eaten, like, five; Louis has learned that Harry’s the sort of person who will keep eating if you let him). They’re supposed to be working on a formal lab write-up for the Lifesavers experiment, and Harry has done the bulk of the work. Louis feels guilty, but it’s not his fault _,_ really, he just can’t make himself do anything, or _think_ anything, even, beyond endless variations of _oh, my god, he’s at my house._ He feels like an idiot because he’s pretty sure he’s not being a hospitable or charming host, let alone a helpful lab partner. He's just sitting there, chewing on his pen and pretending that he’s not about to have an anxiety attack.

“Lou,” Harry says, pushing the old worksheet across the table to him and squinting, pushing his glasses up his nose. “What does your writing say here? M’having a hard time reading it.” 

“Uh,” Louis manages to get out, blinking at his own chicken scratch. God, he was probably just as nervous when he wrote this. He’s _bad at school_ , and it’s all because Harry is too cute and funny and dimpled and bespectacled to focus around. “I think it says…goddammit. I don’t know, my head hurts,” he complains, rubbing his temples. “Can we take a short break? Watch some _Schoolhouse Rock_?” 

Harry nods eagerly, setting down his pencil. “I was gonna suggest a break, actually. Can I see your room?” he asks, and, _okay, wow,_ that escalated quickly. Louis’s heart is pounding, he feels the blood draining from his face, probably leaving him pale. _You can do this_ , he tells himself, nodding hesitantly. It’s not like he’s _never_ taken a boy to his room before, and Harry probably isn’t trying to, like, get in his pants or anything exciting. He’s way overreacting. 

“Sure...it’s, uh, sort of messy,” he lies, because he fucking cleaned up before Harry came over, _just in case_ they ended up in there. Still, his room is messy even when it’s clean; he’s a punk, and his whole _aesthetic_ relies on clutter and things looking DIY and broken. He thinks his records-and-dog-eared-Marxist-zines-stored-in-milk-crates-and-held-up-with-cinder-blocks decor looks cool, but maybe Harry won’t. He has no idea, he’s totally doubting his entire existence right now, like, what does it even mean to be alive when there’s a cute boy in your hallway, you’re leading him to your room, and it feels like you’re _actually dead or dreaming? “_ Ta-da!” he announces weakly, throwing open his door and gesturing to the interior. There are swaths of thrifted fabric over his windows to keep it cool and dark, so he flicks on his bedside lamp, which is the brightest things in the whole room. 

“Wow,” Harry marvels, sitting down on the floor, overwhelmed. “So many posters!” 

“Yeah, they're sort of my wallpaper,” Louis tells him, cannonballing dramatically into his (miraculously) made bed. “I don’t even like half those bands anymore, so I gotta change some out soon.” 

“I…this is gonna sound really stupid,” Harry starts, crossing his legs tighter and glancing from the carpet to Louis’s face and back to the carpet again, looking adorably nervous. “But I sort of thought, before I met you, that all people who dressed like this and listened to angry music were mean? But you’re so nice, and I feel really embarrassed for worrying that you wouldn’t be.” 

Louis sits up, rubbing at a scrape on his ankle that he got skateboarding home too fast yesterday. “I mean, not gonna lie, some punk guys I know _are_ assholes, but I don’t think it’s very punk to act that way. Like, being a jerk isn’t smashing the system or being subversive. Takes more work to be nice, I think.” 

“My motto is ‘treat people with kindness’ actually,” Harry announces, flushing, and Louis thinks it’s so fucking cute and also insanely dorky that this real-life teenage boy just told him he has a _motto,_ like some weird family business or religious convent or something. “It’s harder than it sounds.” 

“Sure it is,” Louis says, grinning at Harry. “S’a very nice motto for most interactions I bet, but how do you treat those people who don’t deserve kindness?” He’s genuinely curious, wondering how someone might apply such a motto to, like, systemic injustices and stuff. He’s not sure if Harry even _thinks_ about that sort of thing, most white nerdy boys don’t. Hell, even most white _punk_ boys don’t, and that’s sort of the whole point of punk. 

“Um,” Harry murmurs, drawing his knees to his chest, scanning the room some more, like he doesn’t really know what to make of Louis’s weird shit. Louis has a lot of collections, like a pile of funny matchbooks stacked on the corner of his desk and some vintage Coke bottles collecting dust on his windowsill, plus, all his records, all his cassettes. Harry’s drinking it all in, looking a little freaked out and a lot out of his element. Louis wants to kiss him _so badly,_ but here they are, talking almost-politics. It’s fucking stressful, but kissing…kissing is _awesome_. Louis would rather be kissing. “I think almost all people deserve kindness, except maybe, like, really bad people, you know, murderers and stuff. But I guess I try and treat them with kindness, too, because you never know what other people are going through...if they aren’t nice to you, it’s probably not about you, and you shouldn't take it, like, personally. I try and give people the benefit of the doubt, always.” 

It’s a predictable, disappointing but still somehow very cute answer. Louis rolls his eyes, annoyed because he doesn't want to kiss Harry any less after hearing it. In fact, he want to kiss him ten times more. He wants to talk to him about morality and communism and activism, maybe give him a zine or two between makeout sessions. “Are you, like, a Christian or something?” he asks, suddenly worried this whole “turn the other cheek” thing is a sign of something more insidious. Seducing nerds is one thing, seducing C _hristian nerds_ is a whole different level. Louis’s not sure he’s quite that #advancedat being gay, though he’s more than ready to make an exception for Harry. 

“Um, no, not really,” Harry replies, making a face that’s not disgusted or offended at the idea. Louis starts to freak out a little, insides coiling at the terrifying possibility that he’s fallen in love with a fucking C _hristian boy_ with C _hristian morals._ “I just think it’s important to be nice...I like that part of Christianity.” 

“Ugh, Harry,” Louis says, flopping onto his matress. There’s very little to like about Christianity in his opinion, save for the fact that Jesus was very punk. Christ was cool, but most Christians? Not so much. “What do you do about, like…racists? And Nazis? And homophobes?” He tacks the last bit on with a lurch in his stomach but presses past it, not giving Harry time to react. “Do you treat them with kindness, too? And what even _is_ kindness, is it listening to them? Hanging out with them? Or maybe just not punching them?”

“Wow,” Harry says, shifting uncomfortably. Louis’s heart breaks a little because he feels like he’s destroying whatever chances he had at ever making out with Harry by insulting his personal life motto. He hates it when principles get in the way of things; he doesn’t _want_ to push Harry away, he wants to pull him closer, pick him apart, learn him inside and out. He’s just awful at flirting, apparently. “I hadn’t really thought about all that. I guess...with those sorts of truly bad people...I don’t _mean_ treat them with kindness…like, genuine kindness. Just nonviolence, maybe?” 

Louis throws his arms in the air, about to implode. “Harrrrryyyyyy, nooo, nonviolence is _not_ how the revolution starts, it’s what the oppressor wants!” He sort of hates himself as soon as it leaves his mouth. Why can’t he just _hit on boys_ with shitty politics instead of isolating them and making them feel shitty? He really doesn’t want to make Harry feel shitty. “Here, lemme play you some music,” he offers, bending down off his bed to pop his CD player open. Out comes the Dead Kennedys and in goes Anti-Flag. He shuts the top and hits play, and immediately Harry recoils a bit, making a face. 

“It’s so angry,” he winces, like anger is objectively and always bad or something silly like that. 

“Well, _yeah,_ don’t you ever get angry?” Louis asks, turning down the music so they can still talk. “Anger isn’t just negative. We’re entitled to be angry about things. ike, injustice...it’s okay to be pissed off about injustice. Do you ever get pissed about things?” He’s desperate, he hardly knows what he’s saying, he just wants to save poor, sweet Harry from becoming a neoliberal. He deserves better than neoliberalism. But Harry is coming closer, crawling on his hands and knees on the floor over to the edge of Louis’s bed, unintentionally sultry, like a wet dream come to life, and Louis balks, recoiling and trying to remember everything he knows about seducing Christian boys. (Which is pretty much nothing.) He can smell Harry, and his heart is beating _so_ hard. 

“I….I do,” Harry admits, cheeks delectably pink. He sits back down on the floor again, and Louis wants to invite him up on the bed beside him, but _fuck_ how does one even _do_ that?! “I wish…,” Harry starts, trailing off, putting his curly head in his hands like whatever he wishes might be too much. “God, it’s embarrassing.” 

“No, it’s not, not to me,” Louis urges, inching closer, stomach in predictable knots. Ugh, he likes him _so_ much. “What do you wish?” 

There’s a pause, the world between them reduced to tension and grit teeth and Louis’s uncertainty as he replays everything that’s happened thus far, wondering if he’s fucked up, if Harry is going to say, _I wish I could worship my lord and savior Jesus Christ without you making fun of me,_ or something similarly awful. 

“I wish I could wear nail polish without anyone _saying_ anything about it,” Harry blurts, covering his face after he says it, shivering there on Louis’s floor, raw and delicious. “Oh, my god,” he adds, sounding mortified. “I sound so stupid, but, like, I wish I could, I dunno, do girly things? And not be called gay for it.” 

“Is being called gay bad?” Louis asks, body tense with self-preservative warning, everything alive and electric. It all depends on this moment, whether or not Harry can tolerate gay rumors surrounding him, whether he can handle his behavior being labeled as gay. The extent to which he knows himself. 

“No! God, no, not that, it’s just...I wish it was normal, you know? Or not normal, _ordinary,_ that it didn't mean anything for boys to wear makeup. I wish it wasn’t a _thing_ at all,” Harry says fiercely, voice clipped, mouth tight. And Louis…Louis wishes he could change the world, in this moment, that he could make nail polish or whatever else totally normy, just so Harry could feel comfortable in his own skin. “It makes me mad that it _is_ a thing,” Harry finishes, deflating. “You probably think that’s cowardly, that I’m scared of doing something I like to do because of what other people think, right? It’s not very punk or whatever.” 

“I don't think that,” Louis answers gently, making a fist in his own sheets to keep himself from reaching out to Harry, from touching his curls, the curve of his shoulder. “I’ll paint your nails, if you want...no questions asked, no assumptions made,” he tacks on, meaning it. “Here,” he offers, digging out a bottle of black from his bedside drawer. “You down?” 

Harry stares at it, looking taken aback. “You’re really nice,” he says eventually, taking the bottle and examining it. “I’d have to chip it off before school, though. My mom doesn't mind, but I’ll get shit in class.”

“That’s fine...wouldn't you rather have pretty nails for a little while than to never do it at all?” Louis asks. God, he really wants to paint Harry’s nails, to hold his big, clumsy hand in his lap and carefully smooth the little brush over each nail. “C’mon, I’ll let you paint mine, too.” 

“Okay,” Harry mumbles, gaze flitting up to Louis nervously. “Thanks for not thinking m’stupid.” 

“You’re the smartest kid in our bio class, you’re, like, a science prodigy,” Louis reminds him. “Also, I have sisters, and they have other colors I bet. You want something _extra_ special...purple or glitter or something?” 

“How about pink?” Harry asks hopefully, cheeks red, eyes bright and uncertain “Soft pink, not neon...if they have it.” 

Louis dashes out of the room on a mission, heart in his throat. Lottie and Fizzy’s room is _dangerously_ messy so instead of braving it and risking stepping on a Barbie and getting stabbed in the foot, he decides to check the bathroom instead, which ends up being a good bet. Up in the medicine cabinet, there are a few forgotten-looking bottles of polish, a gaudy red and a magenta and, fabulously, a frosted-looking, shimmery rose-gold. “It’s not _exactly_ pink,” he admits as he races back into his room, a little out of breath in his enthusiasm. “But still pretty, right?” 

Harry surveys the color for a minute, face unreadable before it erupts into a big, uncontrollable smile. Louis’s stomach tightens like a fist. “Yeah, I like that,” he whispers, shifting his weight where he’s sitting loosely cross-legged on the floor, glasses smudged. Louis wants him here always. “Should I do the black for you?” 

“Nah, we can do the pink-gold so we match,” Louis offers, sitting down on the floor next to Harry, close enough that their knees brush. 

Harry is the troubled-sort of quiet for a minute, and Louis waits patiently for him to say whatever he’s thinking, carefully uncapping the polish and grabbing some cotton balls and acetone from his bedside table. “You’re not like other guys,” is what Harry eventually says, and Louis feels _caught,_ whipping around to stare at Harry. He must looked panicked because Harry colors and adds, “I didn’t…I mean it as a _compliment._ This is really cool, like, that you’re not making fun of me. I sort of keep, I dunno, _bracing_ myself for it? But it never comes.” 

“M’not gonna make fun of you, I only shit on oppressors, like the Cowbell,” Louis explains, grinning and patting his own knee. “Hand here, Curly.” 

Harry chews his lip nervously, blushing at the nickname and carefully reaching out and hovering his hand over Louis’s knee for a few seconds before he formally sets it there. The contact makes Louis tingle, but he tries to keep it professional as he starts to paint, carefully brushing the first layer of shimmery rose-gold over Harry’s nails. They’re nice nails, in fact, he has _gorgeous_ hands, and Louis tries hard not to think of how good they'd feel gripping his bum and instead forces himself to focus on the task at hand. “So,” he says, conversationally. “Any of your friends who are girls also _girlfriends_?” He wants his voice to be even, but it definitely comes out a little wheezy. 

Harry either notices Louis’s nerves and gets nervous, too, or the _question_ makes him nervous. Louis isn't sure. “Um, _no,_ ”he says decidedly after a moment of pursed lips, pinkening cheeks. “Everyone says Marissa has a crush on me, but I _really_ hope not.” 

“Why not?” Louis asks. _Marissa is cute,_ he thinks of adding, but he doesn't know which one of Harry’s friends is Marissa, and he doesn’t want to _lie_ just to goad Harry into divulging more info. 

“Because,” Harry mumbles, fingers flexing against Louis’s knee, making him freeze. “I don't like her like that. 

“I see,” Louis hums, finishing up the first coat and lovingly blowing on Harry’s nails for a few seconds before he decides that it might be weird and gestures for his other hand instead. 

He’s gathering the nerve to ask if he likes _anyone_ when Harry beats him to the punch. “There’s….there’s someone else, actually. Not a girlfriend just...a person I like.” 

_Person,_ Louis thinks, heart picking up in his chest, palms getting sweaty. He wipes them on his jeans before he resumes painting Harry’s other hand. Person is promisingly gender-neutral, but he already feels like he’s pushing his luck so instead of pressing on that point, he takes a general approach. “Oh, yeah? Someone at school?” he asks, attempting nonchalance. 

“Uh,” Harry says, getting antsy, pushing his glasses up with his knuckles before they slide back own the oily bridge of his nose. 

His hand is sweating, too, Louis realizes, he can feel the new, sudden dampness through his jeans where it rests, and he suddenly feels bad for putting Harry on the spot. What was he thinking? That Harry was gonna be, like, “You, actually!” and they'd suddenly start making out, even though Harry’s nails are wet? No, it’s not gonna happen, even if he _is_ the person Harry likes (he’s pretty sure he’s not; the innocent, maybe-Christian, “treat people with kindness” kid isn’t gonna suddenly confess his secret crush on a boy, especially a boy like Louis). “Hey,” Louis says gently as he finishes his pinky finger. “You don’t have to tell me, I didn't mean to pry, m’sorry.” 

“It’s alright,” Harry says, leaning forward so that his necklace falls out of his jumper. The charm Louis has been so actively wondering about glints in the low light, and Louis realizes with mild horror that it’s a _cross._ Like, a Jesus cross.

“Are you sure you’re not a Christian?” he asks, reaching out and poking the charm so it sways. Harry jumps, clutching the cross in his fist before tucking it back into the collar of his shirt. 

“Yes,” he says firmly. “I just like to wear crosses sometimes. I have a star of David, too. They just…they feel like good luck charms or something.”

Louis doesn't know what to say, this is so far beyond the realm of what he thought Harry Styles might be like. He was anticipating repression or maybe even mild homophobia, but he hasn't ever considered that Harry would be a baffling sort of _moral_ teenager. Or maybe not _moral_ , just….whatever this is. Sweet. Incomprehensibly, illogically, wonderfully sweet. Louis nods, paints, and says, “Interesting.” 

“By the way, I don't hate this music as much as I thought I did,” Harry admits after a while, gaze flicking up to catch Louis's for a burning moment before it drops to his lap again. “It’s sort of fun.” 

Louis finishes up the second coat and grins at Harry, delighted. He’s definitely not past saving, he just needs an education. “I can make you a mix CD.” 

Harry wrinkles his nose. “I didn't know people still made those...you could make a Spotify playlist.” 

Louis laughs, endeared. “I could, but m’gonna make you a mix CD. They’re more romantic,” he adds before he even realizes how suggestive it sounds. “Um, do you have anything to play it on?” 

“Yeah, my mom’s big desktop computer has a disk drive,” he giggles. “I’ll play it there. And rip it. And then listen to it on my laptop like someone from this century.” 

“I’d joke that you’d be missing out on sound quality, but fortunately punk isn’t known for that,” Louis jokes back, grinning fondly. 

He’s about to ask Harry what sort of music he likes when Harry takes a deep, deliberate breath and announces, “The person _is_ a person from school. They’re in our bio class.” 

Louis’s mouth gets dry at the word _they’re,_ which is, again, _glaringly_ gender-neutral. “I see,” he says, finishing up the second coat and capping the bottle again, trying not to look like he’s gonna explode. “I’ll have to keep an eye out for who makes you nervous, then...ta-da, they’re done! Like ‘em?” he asks, since deflecting seems like the best way to deal with Harry’s almost-confession. Maybe if Louis lies low enough, Harry will just _tell_ him who he likes. 

“I love them,” Harry says quietly, trying to bite back a really cute, enormous smile as he admires the shimmery pink. “Thank you so much.” 

“My turn,” Louis announces, holding his hands out and fanning his fingers apart. 

“Okay, sorry if they’re messy or I fuck it up,” Harry says, very, _very_ tentatively taking Louis’s hand and lowering it to his own knee. Louis’s fingertips are electric with the touch; he can feel the heat of Harry’s skin through his pantleg, can see the minor shift of his ribcage with each careful inhalation, and it feels like praying or something equally profound.

“I’ll like them even if they look terrible,” Louis assures him, noticing Harry’s hands are shaking a bit, like he’s genuinely nervous about doing a bad job. 

“Sooo…,” Harry says after a minute, tongue pressed into his cheek and face thoughtful. Louis likes this, being close enough to study him up close without getting caught. “There’s this bio quizathon coming up in December that happens every quarter. The Cowbell told me I should sign up, but I’m, like, actually really nervous about speaking in front of people, and I don't think I’d do well under pressure?” 

“You’d be fantastic,” Louis tells him outright, gently squeezing his knee. “I think you should do it, and I never agree with the Cowbell. You could practice...the talking-in-front-of-people part, I mean.” 

“I guess,” Harry says, prudently dabbing the brush on Louis's pinky nail. 

Then, Louis has a _brilliant_ idea. “No, listen, we could totally make a thing out of it! Meet up every weekend so I could quiz you...we could set a timer, and it would help me with bio, too.” 

“Really? You’d do that for me?” Harry asks, raising his eyebrows. 

“Absolutely,” Louis tells him. 

“Wow...you’re a lifesaver,” he gushes, blushing, and Louis thinks of the experiment they did together, his red lips getting redder from the sugar. 

“Nah, if I was a candy, I think I’d be a War Head or something,” he jokes, but Harry shakes his head. 

“You’re way sweeter than you know, actually,” he says, and _Louis_ ends up blushing, perhaps not noticeably, but it’s there all the same. He wonders if this is flirting. 

“Just tell me the topics for the quizathon, and I’ll make up some questions and stuff. It’ll be fun.” 

“Yeah, okay.” 

And just like that, they have a sort-of date planned weekly for the next two months, and Louis can’t stop smiling.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my goodness, thank you all so so much for the wonderful and enthusiastic response this story has gotten!!! I'm so honored!!! Gonna start the new year off by publishing the second chapter, which was the half of the story I really enjoyed writing the most. I love these characters and am so happy to share them with you. Enjoy everyone, and especially Danika, who has been AMAZING to have as a recipient for this challenge! Thank you for loving and supporting and cheering me on!!!! You're a real Angel <333 Here's your Quizathon!!!

As the weeks go on, it becomes increasingly clear that Louis is falling in love. 

It’s not _just_ that Harry is cute and smells so good and makes his stomach tie up in knots when he's close by, it’s everything _else,_ too. His intelligence. His softness. His curiosity. His willingness to learn and to change. He not only listens to the mix CD that Louis dutifully makes for him, but he comes to bio the next day with _notes_ written about it, an actual half-sheet of binder paper listing the tracks he enjoyed, the tracks he didn’t, and _questions_ about them all so that he can interrogate his biases and request certain artists (Modern Life Is War, the Smiths) for future mix CDs. He wants a proper education in punk and New Wave, he thinks of it as a research project. He’s a spectacular nerd, and Louis (possibly, _definitely_ ) loves him for it. 

He also loves him for his giant, careful hands, his weird, dry, well-timed but often too-quiet jokes, his honking goose laugh, and his pretty singing voice, which Louis has the privilege of hearing a few times when they study and listen to _The Queen Is Dead._ He hums along a bit before joining in at the chorus, and Louis is _stunned_ to hear that he’s not only right on pitch but that hesounds _lovely_ , voice deep and rich and sweet like treacle. Louis knows that he can’t point this out, that it’s too transparent to compliment a friend for his _singing voice,_ of all things. Especially if he’s a friend you’re flirting with, and you’re not even sure if he’s gay or not. 

Louis holds back a lot around Harry. 

He feels _way too_ much, too intensely, too fast, and it would scare away anormal boy, let alone a pseudo-Christian, possibly repressed ( _definitely_ closeted) nerd. And also a virgin, if you believe in that sort of thing. 

Louis finds out that Harry’s a virgin because he tells him so. It happens mid-study session, this time at Harry’s house, where his delightful mom is only one room away and doing needlepoint while she bosses people around on a conference call. 

Louis’s using color-coded flashcards to quiz Harry on science stuff, and a whole series of cards is dedicated to how plants have sex, their stamens and pistils and pollen and whatnot. He and Harry are both giggling about the flowers getting it on when Harry lets the bomb drop: “These plants are getting more action than I ever have.” 

Louis drops the card and looks nervously over his shoulder toward the sound of Anne’s voice, wondering why Harry would say such a thing within earshot of his _mom_. “Oh, my god,” he snickers to save himself, covering his mouth with his hand, looking scandalized. “Are you just saying that because your mom’s right there, or have you actually never…,” he lets it trail off, lets his voice whittle down to a weird hush. He's not weird about sex or _talking_ about sex or even talking about sex with _his_ mom, but that’s because he knows his mom, knows that she doesn't care as long as he’s safe. It’s different when he's around the boy he secretly likes and _that_ boy’s mom, a woman he hardly knows. 

“No, actually,” Harry confesses, cheeks coloring. “I have, like, _zero_ experience. Marissa has given a hand job to her ex-boyfriend, and my other friend Kathy and _her_ boyfriend apparently do it all the time? It’s crazy. Like, how do you ever get brave enough to ask a person out, let alone date them and get comfortable enough around them to have sex?!” 

Louis’s cheeks are so hot that he might have a sudden fever. Harry’s talking about sex and dating and bemoaning the lack of both in his life. It’s almost too much to bear without implosion. He also said _person_ instead of _girl_ again _,_ which makes Louis’s heart leap in premature hope every time. “I mean, you don’t have to, like… _date_ -date people to experience the sort of intimacy that could lead to sex. Like, people sometimes sleep with their friends, just to try it. Or with strangers because it can feel, like, uh, less risky? I dunno...I’ve never really dated anyone, but I've done sex stuff.” 

Harry’s eyes get wide behind his glasses. “Wow,” he gasps. “Really? Like what? With who? How was it? Was it fun or just super, super awkward?” 

Anne gets up and starts pacing, needlepoint forgotten, and Louis’s paranoia spikes. “Dude, your _mom_ is right there, and I want her to like me. Can we talk about this somewhere else? The privacy of your room or something?” he asks a little desperately, and as it comes out, he instantly regrets it because it also sounds marginally creepy and scheming. Harry doesn't seem to think so, though; he just nods eagerly, kicking his feet in their Supras out in front of himself like he’s about to stand up and drag Louis off into the shadows so they can whisper about sex like actual preteens or something.

“Yeah, okay, good idea.” 

“Harold! Aren’t you supposed to be learning about photosynthesis?” 

Harry pouts, and Louis very nearly crumbles, heart racing. He’s not ready for anything to happen, as desperately as he wants it to. He hasn’t had mint gum or checked his deodorant in, like, a whole hour. “But this is way more interesting than plant sex,” Harry whines. 

“Okay, how about we do, like, two more cards, take a break, and then I can tell you my not at all sordid and likely very boring and disappointing sexual history?” Louis offers, hoping to buy himself some time. He hasn’t officially come out to Harry yet, and even though he’s increasingly certain that Harry isn’t straight and _knows_ it, he’s still pretty terrified of how it might change their whole studying-and-tentative-friendship dynamic if things are not as he hopes. They both tend to dart around pronouns in such a way that there’s lots of room for interpretation, but he can’t do that while talking about his own experiences, they won’t make sense without that crucial context, so Harry is _going_ to find out, if he somehow doesn't already know. 

“Fine,” Harry huffs, crossing his legs again and sighing. “Quiz me then.” 

Harry messes up one card and rushes his way through the other, and Louis almost misses it because he’s too busy being lost in his own head, dually terrified and elated. Then, with Anne still on the phone and the flashcards stacked haphazardly on the living room coffee table, they sneak off to Harry’s room and shut the door behind them. 

It’s so nerve-wracking that Louis’s worried he might _actually_ pass out, flicking his fingers nervously through his hair so that he has something to do, eyes sweeping the perimeter of the room without landing on Harry. 

His room is pretty much exactly how Louis thought it would be: arrested in a time when Harry was younger, cluttered but neat. He has science fair trophies stacked on his bookcase, the Harry Potter series in an ordered row, train models on his dresser, stacks of novels dog-eared by his bedside table, house plants on the wide sill above his desk, which is overflowing with papers. Louis wonders if there’s a secret nail polish stash hidden in the drawers, tucked between the pencil pouches and old binders that Harry most definitely still holds onto, just in case. “I keep meaning to redecorate,” Harry admits, cheeks coloring. “It’s pretty boring, compared to your room and, like…little-kiddish, guess.” 

“It’s not, it’s perfect,” Louis reassures him, sitting down on his swiveling desk chair and spinning around, stopping himself before he gets too dizzy. He’s _not_ going to bring up the topic of sex again unprompted, so he waits for Harry to do it, chest alight with the messily plaited sensations of dread and hope, laced with the distant burn of arousal. 

“So,” Harry says, plopping down on his neatly made bed and crossing his legs in front of him. “What have you done?” 

Well, that lasted long. Louis takes a deep breath and walks the plank. 

“I’ve jacked some guys off, and I gave a guy a blow job once...sort of let him rub up against my ass but, like, in my clothes. And that’s pretty much it. Never had any of that stuff done to _me_ , tragically, the only thing I’ve been on the receiving end of is getting my dick awkwardly groped through my pants before the guy decided he was straight. He freaked out, which, uh, happens,” Louis rambles, throat increasingly tight with panic as he watches Harry, whose only response so far is to get very, very red-cheeked, eyes increasingly wide and glittering. 

“You’re gay?” Harry breathes, pupils so wet-black that Louis feels like he could fall into them. 

And he could _lie_ or make a joke or just get snarky and tell Harry that having sucked dick doesn't necessarily make him gay because he could theoretically be bi or pan or something else, but he can barely talk, barely _think,_ let alone take the arguing-for-political-correctness-for-the-sake-of-deflection route.The words stick in his throat so he just sits there, picking at a tiny hole on the upholstery of Harry’s desk chair until he can choke out, “Well, yeah...obviously.” 

Harry crumples, just caves in on himself and hides his face in his arms for a minute, like a puppet with his strings cut. Louis freaks out, wondering what the fuck it means until Harry sits up abruptly, eyes looking wet and red-rimmed and shiny with overwhelm. “Oh, my god, I’m so fucking relieved. I wanted to ask you so badly, but I had no idea how to, and…ugh, I’m just so glad I wasn’t being weird.” He pauses then, rubs his face with his palm, and shakes his curls out before fixing his glasses, a series of tiny tics and adjustments before confessing, “Also, um, yeah...me, too. I’m gay, I mean.” 

Louis blinks and lets the words sink in, even though it feels like they bounce off him for awhile before he actually lets himself absorb them. “Really?” he blurts, failing _completely_ to sound nonchalant or cool. 

“Yes! You couldn't tell?!” Harry asks, seeming genuinely surprised. “I thought I was _so_ obvious.” 

“Well, I suspected, I guess, but I didn’t want to assume until you told me, you know? And you…you didn’t know about _me?!_ I don’t do anything to hide it, so I thought for _sure_ —”

“I didn’t know or even really suspect,” Harry cuts him off, shaking his head. “I guess I just…hoped?” 

Louis doesn't know what to make of that, how it twists low and sudden in his gut, strikes him like lightning, just as burning and miraculous. “I didn’t want to assume your nail thing was, like, _related_ to being gay. Especially when you said it bothered you when people reduced it to that,” Louis explains, eager for an excuse to say something, to shatter the tension he’s felt collect around him since Harry admitted to _hoping._ Because he...well, he hoped, _too_ , of course. Hoped desperately, obsessively. Because more than anything else honorable or supportive or pure, he wants to be Harry’s _boyfriend._ He wonders if Harry hoped for the same reason, or if he just wanted a friend he could relate to, a mentor, someone to tell him that he wasn't alone. Louis hopes so badly that he’s not making something innocent into something dirty out of the fierce rage of his want. 

“I guess I meant I hate when _straight people_ assume that. You…I dunno,” Harry pauses, a line creasing through his brow before he adds, “I like the idea of _you_ knowing, before I told you. Like reading a secret code about me or something?” he shrugs. “It sounds dumb.” 

“It doesn’t, it’s real, it’s _totally_ real to, like, know about someone without them saying anything. Us gays are telepathic, actually,” he jokes then, talking too fast, and Harry cracks up, the air in the room feeling substantially lighter and more chaotic at the same time. 

“So, can I ask you stuff? About sex? I’ve never met another gay guy my age who’s actually done anything…well, I guess I’ve never met another gay guy my age, period.” 

“What do you want to know?” Louis asks, heart pounding, skin tingling. He doesn’t actually think he can talk about this sort of stuff with Harry, he’ll combust, he’ll _die._ At the very least, he’ll get a boner or have an anxiety attack, both of which sound insufferably embarrassing. 

“Like…was it good? Did you like it?” Harry asks quietly and sincerely, eyes wide. 

“It was…I dunno. I mean, every time was exciting because it was new, and sex feels good, but at the same time, none of the guys really liked me back the same way, and it was always in secret, we weren’t _dating_ , so I guess it wasn’t, like, intimate...or not as intimate as I wanted, anyway. Not to talk shit about sex outside of loving relationships or whatever, I’m not judging, it’s just maybe... not for me?” 

“You said you gave a guy a blow job,” Harry starts, voice so hushed over the word, almost in awe. “What was _that_ like? Was it gross? Amazing?” 

“Oh, my god, _Harold!_ I can’t talk to you about this stuff!” Louis hisses, scandalized at Harry for flat-out _asking_ him for dick-sucking details but also at himself for very nearly _salivating_ over it, shivering at the idea of Harry wanting to know so badly about sucking dick in the first place. He tries not to imagine Harry on his knees, Harry with his soft, pink Lifesaver lips open. _God._ Louis crosses his legs and fiercely banishes the image. 

“Why not?” Harry asks, face falling. 

_Because I’m gonna get hard,_ Louis thinks, knowing full well that admitting such a thing could turn the tide if Harry is into him or curious enough. He just _can’t_ , though, he _can’t_ pull some cheap seduction move on Harry Styles, who he’s fucking gone and fallen in love with like an absolute idiot. If this happens, it’s going to happen because Harry _wants it_ to happen and makes that crystal clear. 

“Because…I don’t know, I feel like it’s weird? And, like, predatory for me to talk to you about this stuff when you’ve never done anything before! I feel like I’m being inappropriate or something,” Louis admits, spinning in Harry’s chair, giving himself an excuse to not scrutinize Harry’s face, letting the room and everything in it blur together around him like a tornado. 

When he stops, Harry rolls his eyes. “You’re not _that_ much older than me, and it’s not like I’m some innocent kid.” 

“Harry—,” Louis starts, when someone knocks on the door and startles them both so much that they flinch before locking eyes across the room, frozen.

“Louis, honey, your mom is here to get you!” Anne calls through the door, and Harry lets out a long breath, collapsing on the bed as Louis curses, feeling caught. 

“Okay, coming right down!” Harry answers for him. 

They wait until her footsteps disappear down the stairs and only then does Louis breathe again. “Oh, my _god,_ I cannot _believe_ your mom interrupted our sex talk!” 

“It resumes next study session, okay?” Harry insists. “ _You_ quiz me about science _, I’ll_ quiz you about blow jobs. It’s only fair.”

Louis disagrees, finding it very, _very_ unfair. But he still beams on the ride home as he thinks over and over again about the things Harry said and how they cut into his heart. _I’m gay, I mean,_ so soft and careful and messy and sweet, and then, puzzling and strange and maybe, maybe, _maybe_ something to hang his longing on, _I guess I just...hoped._

Louis hopes, too. He hopes really hard. 

\---

Luckily, Harry drops the subject of blow jobs pretty soon after it’s brought up. Louis refuses to budge on it, way too mortified by his inevitable boner and revealing discomfort around the subject to even _pretend_ to be okay with it. He just _can’t_ do it, can’t fake his way through a casual sex talk between gay bros when he basically wants to _marry_ Harry. (Which rhymes? So, like, obviously fate.)

Usually Louis _loves_ pushing Harry, getting him to squirm and blush but only when he can remain unflappable in comparison. He can’t _do_ that when talking about blow jobs. Sex in general is a fine subject to dance around, but Louis’s _actual_ real-life experiences are a different story. It’s too close to talking about _sex in practice_ and therefore too close to talking about sex _with each other_ instead of sex as a general concept. Harry pouts a bit when Louis refuses to go into detail, but Louis eventually manages to successfully convince him to drop it in favor of proper studying because the quizathon is rapidly approaching. 

The thing is, Harry doesn't really _need_ to study for the quizathon. He’s the sort of kid who retains the things he reads, he has tons of information stored inside his brain for immediate recall, and as Louis quizzes him with each new set of flashcards, he sort of feels like _he’s_ learning more than Harry is, like these study sessions are for his own progress in bio rather than to prepare Harry for the steadily approaching quizathon. Louis would be suspicious that it was just a ploy to hang out because Harry’s too awkward and studious to initiate social stuff without the pretense of studying, but he can _tell_ it’s more authentic than that. He can tell Harry _genuinely_ believes that he’s ill-prepared for this thing, that the only way for him to compete let alone win is to memorize every flashcard in freakish detail. 

He’s so nerdy, with his color-coded highlighters and his nervous inquiries after every session as to whether or not Louis thinks he’s ready. It’s so _cute_. Harry’s so weirdly and sincerely dedicated to doing well at a high school science competition that Louis feels the same gravity about it, _believes_ him on some level that this is a deeply important ritual with life-or-death stakes. He’s not just helping him because he wants to be close to him and all that, he’s helping him because he wants him to do _well_ , wants him to feel good about himself, is wholeheartedly committed to the act of making sure that Harry Styles loves every little thing about himself that Louis loves, too. It’s important to Louis that he _realize_ how _good_ he is, how smart and impressively organized and _soft,_ his pink enamel nails thumbing through his mint green flashcards like something from one of those _Baby-Sitters Club_ books. He’s let Louis paint his nails a few more times since the first, even _asked_ shyly once during a lull in their studying, cheeks getting so red, eyes bright behind the lenses of his glasses. 

Louis loves him way too much; it’s probably going to kill him, his heart might explode from the constant duress, the end is nigh. But in the meantime, he’ll spend his final days listening to Harry's sweet, molasses-slow voice going on and on in hyper-accurate detail about the function of mitochondria (the powerhouse of the cell) by day, lying in his room listening to _Please, Please, Please,_ _Let Me Get What I Want_ on a miserably, self-pitying loop by night. He’s so in love, it’s gonna fucking murder him. 

In spite of his reluctance to talk about blow jobs, ever, Louis _does_ spend the next few weeks wondering about the elusive boy in their bio class that Harry supposedly has a crush on. He’s brought it up a few times, tentatively and gently, but every time Harry just gets bowled over by a spectacular flush and refuses to elaborate. Louis’s an idiot, so he's wondered if (hoped that) it’s him, even though he’s pretty sure it's not. After all, if it _was_ him _,_ wouldn't Harry have already _said_ something? They spend so much time together, and Louis, for all his blow job avoidance, spends most of that time gently flirting. Flattering. Being sweet. If Harry thought of him that way in return, wouldn’t he _do_ something more than turn pink and avert his eyes and chew his lip? Wouldn't he flirt _back?_ Just a little? 

Or maybe Louis’s just incompetent and has no idea how to actually woo boys he _really_ likes. Maybe he's so consumed with self-doubt that he second-guesses himself every step of the way and eventually cements himself into a friendly, mentorship role because he’s afraid of coming across as creepy or excessive or pushy.

He has no idea. Everything he _thought_ he knew about seduction or flirtation has gone out the door because he doesn't want to just blow Harry in the locker room or sneak off to a supply closet for a hasty, never-to-be-talked-about-again hand job, like every other time he’s come on to a boy. He wants to _date_ him. Preferably forever. And he just…doesn’t know how to go about it. So many of the interactions he’s had with boys have been either purely sexual in nature or close, platonic friendships. Having intimacy _and_ sex? Seems fake. 

Zayn, ever practical and wildly creative, suggests a grand gesture. “You need to, like, buy him flowers or something,” he counsels as they walk home from school one afternoon, sharing a clove cigarette. Louis doesn't particularly like the flavor, but he’s stressed and nervous and Zayn offered, so here he is, coughing, eyes streaming as he sputters. “Something big. Unmistakably romantic.” 

“Flowers are _cheesy,_ he’ll be embarrassed,” Louis whines, even though he thinks of Harry every time he sees the nice spray roses at the supermarket with his mom, especially the pink ones that match Harry’s favorite nail polish or the deeper ones that match his lips. Every shade of pink makes him think of Harry; he’s a mess. “I feel like it has to be obvious, not cliche.” 

“What about a card? Or a letter? A _love_ letter,” Zayn says wistfully, kicking at the sidewalk. Zayn (who _is_ some sort of gay, Louis finally found out) has been pitiful and sad the last few weeks because he’s pining over a jock boy named Liam on the track team. Zayn’s convinced that Liam’s totally straight, but Louis thinks there’s hope because Liam seems way too earnest and nice to be entirely heterosexual. Still, Zayn seems to be having a good time feeling sorry for himself, gleefully joining Louis in his moping-about-boy-problems sessions. 

“I can’t just _tell_ him yet...if I put words to it, I’ll spiral out of control and propose to him or something.” 

“I dunno, Louis. M’not sure there’s a better way to go about confessing your love than just, uh, confessing it, right? What’s the worst that could happen?” 

Louis looks at him, mouth hanging open because he cannot _believe_ Zayn hasn’t catalogued all the potentially shitty outcomes and worst-case scenario already. He won’t even _talk_ to Liam, so it seems pretty unfair. “Um, _rejection,_ Zayn. Rejection and broken hearts and _death.”_

Zayn rolls his kohl-smudged eyes at Louis. “You’re not gonna _die_ if he doesn't like you back, you’ll just move on.” 

“I’m not sure I will, actually. Are _you_ going to move on from _Liam?_ ” Louis pouts.

Zayn pouts right back at him, caught. “Yeah, okay, you have a point.” 

“ _Thank you._ Plus, if I tell him and make it weird, then we won’t even be able to be friends anymore, and that’ll suck because what if it takes, like, ten years of friendship before he realizes he’s in love with me, too? What if I’m destined to be Adam Sandler’s in _The Wedding Singer_ or something, and this is going to require _patience?_ I can’t blow my chance.” 

“I don’t think that’s the right romcom,” Zayn offers, which is not _at all_ helpful. “I think you’re thinking of _My Best Friend’s Wedding.”_

 _“_ You’re missing my point _entirely,_ ” Louis groans, though he’s only seen the trailers for those two movies, not the movies themselves, so Zayn’s _probably right._ Stressed, he inhales too much and subsequently chokes on the spicy smoke. “Ugh, take this, it hurts.” 

“But that cigarette is all I have to contribute to your sob story,” Zayn reminds him. 

“Well, I guess I’m gonna need to brainstorm some not obvious, not cheesy, not too revealing but still romantic grand gestures _all by myself,_ I see.” 

Determined to be helpful, Zayn purses his lips and takes a slow drag on Louis’s abandoned cig. “What about going to the quizathon thing you’re helping him prepare for and surprising him there with, like, some flowers,” he offers. 

And…it’s not a bad idea. Sans flowers, anyway. Louis considers it and tries to remember where the quizathon is happening since he’s _pretty_ sure it’s a ways away, at a high school campus a few districts over. They've been operating under the assumption that Louis wouldn’t go; Harry has expressed a few times that he’s nervous in part because only his mom would be there. 

Louis imagines Harry’s big, cheesy, embarrassed, _adorable_ grin at realizing Louis showed up as a surprise to support him, sitting there next to Anne with a sign, cheering him on, reminding him of all the hours they've spent side by side munching celery and ranch dip and talking about anatomy and plant sex. “That’s actually…that actually might work,” he admits to Zayn, shrugging. “Wanna come to the craft store with me?” 

Zayn complains and insists that he doesn't think signs are less cheesy than flowers _at all,_ but he follows Louis anyway, helping him pick out glitter and stickers and posterboard. Then, they head to Louis’s house and get to work. 

—

The day of the quizathon, Louis is insanely nervous. He’s probably more nervous than Harry is, even though Harry’s the one competing. He _knows_ Harry will smash every question and probably win, so he’s not worried about that part; he’s worried that this entire idea isn’t as nice as he initially thought, that he’ll actually make Harry feel _worse_ or add more pressure by being there or embarrass him with his own enthusiasm. 

Still, he wears his nicest, least-torn pair of black skinnies and tucks them into his Docs, pulling on a _real_ t-shirt instead of the kind he usually wears, with the sleeves hacked out to show his sides. It’s as dressed up as he can achieve with his current wardrobe, but regardless, he feels like it’s not _enough,_ like he’s going to stick out. Still, he makes himself go. He’s not gonna miss an opportunity to see the boy he loves answer some questions about plant sex. 

He borrows his mom’s car, which doesn't help his nerves one bit because even though Louis has had his drivers license for a whole two years, he fucking _hates_ driving, it makes him insanely anxious and jumpy and worst of all, _sweaty_. On the way over, he blasts Bikini Kill because he thinks it’ll make him feel better, but it ends up just winding him up even tighter, so he switches it out for one of the CDs Zayn made him, which is mostly Sisters of Mercy. By the time he makes it to the quizathon, his hands are slick, he’s shaking all over, and he's so relieved he made it there without killing anyone that he feels like he should kiss the ground. Instead, he tries to still his trembling hands as he looks for Anne, having told her earlier that he was planning on surprising Harry. 

She’s sitting in the back and texting rapidly when he finds her, purse on the folding plastic chair beside her that she saved for him. He drops into it gratefully, letting out a deep, shuddering sigh.

“Oh, Louis! I’m so glad you made it!” She sounds surprised as she hugs him, squeezing his shoulders tight. 

“Of course, I wouldn’t miss it,” he assures her.

“I know you said you were coming, but I guess I’m just not used to Harry having a guy friend like this...I mean, someone who follows through on things! He’s never taken to someone like this, you know, not since elementary school, I’m so glad you two met,” Anne gushes, splaying a manicured hand on her chest, her eyes getting misty, indicating to Louis that she’s a _crier._ The sort who tears up at commercials and songs and the endings to both sad _and_ happy movies. Still, even if she gets emotional at everything, it makes him feel really good and warm and hopeful inside to think that she’s noticed anything special about his and Harry’s friendship, that the way Harry acts around him is somehow different than his other friends. 

“He has his girl friends, of course, but this…this is different. I think so many boys are just unfair about him because he’s not…well, you know. You know what he’s like,” she says warmly, squeezing his hand, and Louis _does_ know, but he’s not sure that _she_ does or that she understands exactly what she’s saying. Harry hasn’t come out to Anne as far as he’s aware, so this all feels loaded and a bit tense, the possibility that she’s picked up on something charged between them without actually identifying it. He hopes, anyway. But he’s also trying not to get his hopes up. Not yet. 

“I, um, I brought some signs I made, you know, to cheer him on. We can hold them up, but only if other people are doing that, too...otherwise, I think he’d be embarrassed?” 

“You’re so thoughtful, Lou,” Anne tells him, tears shining on her cheeks _in earnest_ now. “Harry’s _really_ nervous...he’ll be so happy to have you here, signs or not.” 

And Louis hopes that’s true, too. 

The auditorium is loud with chatter for another ten minutes or so until a frazzled-looking woman with white hair and a chunky wooden necklace made to look like the solar system comes out onto the stage and thanks everyone for being there. She explains how the quizathon works, how it came to be, its history, but that’s when Louis notices Harry and the other competing students sitting to the side of the stage waiting to come up to the opposing podiums, and he stops being able to listen to or focus on anything else entirely _._

Harry looks _blanched,_ his usually pink face drained of nearly all color, the skin gray and pale, making the breakouts at his hairline and his pink pink lips seem even darker in contrast. He keeps taking his glasses off and compulsively cleaning them on the hem of his dress shirt, which is untucked. He’s dressed way fancier than any of the other kids, in black slacks and a gray blazer, and he looks adorably out of place at the same time he looks oddly rumbled, like he tried to muss himself up once he realized that his outfit was out of place. Just looking at him makes Louis _ache,_ makes him want to rush up to the stage and throw his arms around Harry’s neck and squeeze him tight, tell him that it’s okay, that he doesn't need to be nervous, that it’s alright if he is, that he’s gonna _kill it_ up there because he’s so smart and so good at bio. 

Instead, he just clutches his chair and squirms, his studded belt cutting into his hips as he shifts around uncomfortably. “He looks so worried,” he whispers to Anne, who nods. 

“He’ll be okay once they start,” she replies, though she doesn’t sound like she believes it, necessarily, so Louis decides to believe it for her. 

Harry stumbles a bit with the first few questions, and Louis _knows_ that he knows the answers to them, but he’s not hitting the buzzer quickly enough, or if he does, he freezes and can’t make the words come out. He's not white-faced anymore, he’s flushed red in mortification and frustration, and Louis _can't stand it,_ can’t sit here and watch sweet Harry beat himself up when he deserves so many wonderful things. 

And no one _else_ has posters, no one _else_ is cheering, there’s just polite clapping after every right answer, but Louis’s a punk and a theater kid and feels with certainty that no one gets anywhere by sitting quietly and _wishing_ they could help. So, as Harry comes up for the next question, he stands and whoops, cupping his hands around his mouth and shouting, “Oi oi!! Harold, you got this!” before grabbing a sign (neon green with plants drawn all over it and giant glitter letters that read, _Why couldn't the plants escape prison? Because their cells are surrounded by walls!_ since Harry appreciates a good, dorky, _Schoolhouse Rock_ -level biology joke). Louis’s voice echoes through the auditorium, but he doesn't even have time to panic because some people in the audience have joined him, mostly kids from their bio class who came to support their own friends, along with a few Canterlot High students who don’t know Harry but don’t want their team to lose to another school. Relief washes over Louis as Harry whips his head around to stare at him, mouth open in shock for a moment before he sees the sign and Louis and grins hugely, eyes twinkling behind his glasses. 

Louis is so happy that his chest feels tight, like he’s full of butterflies that could burst out of him if he says anything more and fill the whole vaulted ceiling with a mess of fluttering wings. Harry aces the next question, his voice coming out a bit louder and faster and more confident now that the tension in the room is shattered. He seems so much more relaxed, and Louis wants to _cry,_ wants to join Anne in her happy-proud tears, collapse back onto his chair, and _breathe,_ finally. 

The rest of the quizathon is a blur, but it doesn't even matter because Canterlot High wins by a landslide, and Harry is responsible for more than _half_ of their points. Louis screams himself hoarse watching from the sidelines, and Anne (predictably) cries. Louis has forgotten all about his traumatic driving experience and how nervous he felt about his clothes; he’s _buzzing_ and excited and jittery, crawling out of his skin as he bounces next to Anne, waiting desperately for Harry to emerge from backstage. 

When he finally makes his way out in a crowd of classmates, his face is nothing but dimples, split with so massive a smile that Louis’s stomach twists in elation, like _he_ was the one who answered so many questions correctly, like _he_ won points for the school. He guesses this is what it’s like to be in love, to feel someone else’s successes lighting you up inside, nothing truly ever, purely your own anymore. It makes Louis feel weirdly satisfied, like this is how he’s _meant_ to be, his truest destiny: experiencing what Harry experiences, as starkly and surely as if it were happening in his own heart. 

Louis waits patiently for Harry, rolling onto the balls of his feet, heart pounding in his chest as he draws nearer, beaming, stopping occasionally to hug a fellow teammate or get his hair ruffled affectionately. Louis’s palm tingles in yearning; _he_ wants to touch Harry, _he_ wants to feel the softness of his curls under the splay of his hand. 

Anne gets the first hug, squeezing Harry so fiercely that she lifts him a bit as he emits a tiny, muted, “Oof.” 

“I’m so proud of you,” she cries, rubbing tears into his blazer, squeezing tight. “You were the star!”

“Mo-ommm,” Harry gripes, hugging back without twisting away but still frowning, blushing. “It was a team thing, I wasn’t—”

“C’mon, Harold,” Louis tells him, catching his eyes over Anne’s shoulder and watching them darken, sparkle, his cheeks visibly heating up. “You _were_ sort of the MVP,” he adds, smiling conspiratorially. He’s going for nonchalant, but his stomach knots in a series of tiny, overwhelmed twists, heart in his throat. 

“Louis,” Harry whispers, disentangling from his mom and launching himself into Louis’s arms, breathless and hot to the touch before letting go to fix his hair sheepishly. Louis is dumbstruck, pulse pounding, hands still tingling from their too-brief brush across Harry’s shoulder. “You came! I thought…well, I didn't expect you at all, but m’so glad you’re _here_ , just seeing you made me think of all the time we spent studying, and…,” Harry trails off, pushing his glasses up his nose and chewing his lip. “And the signs, wow, thanks...just, thank you so much, I’m so glad you came!” 

“Of course, I had to come witness the fruits of my labor first-hand, right?” Louis jokes, wanting to touch Harry again, regretting not hugging him back tightly enough when they embraced. He feels the ghost of Harry’s body burning against him still, and he wants more, _always_ more. A longing so real and bone-deep that it feels like it’s a part of him. “You absolutely _smashed_ it.” 

“Thanks at least in part to you, though,” Harry mumbles, shuffling his feet, looking down. 

Anne invites him to dinner after that, and Louis packs up his posterboards, grinning spectacularly. In fact, he grins all the way back to town, even though he _loathes_ the traffic. The sun sinks low and hot and orange along the horizon, the warm darkness of twilight beginning to creep in, and still he grins every time he thinks of Harry, grins until his cheeks ache. 

—

Louis stops at home to change back into one of his usual tank-tops and brushes his teeth, _just_ _in case_. He’s not expecting a kiss, but it’s always good to be prepared, he thinks. He pockets some gum, finger-combs some gel into his hair, and checks his bum out in the mirror before deciding his pants are good and aren’t worth changing before heading out again. 

After the long drive and congestion on the highway, the trip to Harry’s house is a breeze, and Louis finds himself actually _relaxing_ into the act of driving, his white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel loosening incrementally until he feels comfortable _letting one hand_ _rest in his lap,_ fingers tap-tapping along to “Lucretia, My Reflection _,_ ”the only Sisters of Mercy song he knows well enough to tap along to.

Upon pulling up to Harry’s house and killing the engine, he sits in the driver's seat for a while, just taking deep breaths and getting his bearings, feeling as if he’s on the verge of something massive and world-changing, though he’s not yet sure of _what_ , exactly. He knows what he wants, what he _hopes_ , but he can’t be certain that that’s what he’s feeling encroach upon him. The streetlights hum, spilling gold out onto the dusk-wet street, and Louis watches a lone crow picking her way through the gutter, grabbing things and cracking them in her beak. He hopes it’s not some weird omen and instead a _good_ sign, an indication that his foraging will prove fruitful or something. 

He waits on the porch for a long minute until Harry arrives breathlessly at the door to throw it open, glasses askew, lips open and pink like he just raced down the stairs. “Oh, my god, it’s _cold_ out there, come in, come in,” he says instead of hello, standing in socked feet, looking cute and warm and rumpled and… _nervous_ , again, nervous like he was onstage. 

“S’not bad,” Louis assures him, toeing off his own shoes and wondering if it’s weird or not to hug Harry when he hasn’t yet initiated. He’s standing over an arm’s distance away, so Louis would have to step in, and furthermore, Harry feels like he has some sort of _wall_ up, an intentional distance between them that Louis has never consciously felt before. He wonders for a moment if he invented it out of nerves, if he’s putting too much weight on the fog crawling in or the crow he saw, but then Harry steps even further away and wrings his hands, eyes downcast, almost like he doesn’t _want_ Louis to be here at all. 

Louis’s blood ices over, his stomach plummeting. Something is _wrong._ He’s working up the nerve to ask Harry about it when Anne bustles in, hair up in messy bun and wearing an apron that says _Save water, drink wine!_ in curly red script. It’s like his own mom’s _Kiss the Cook_ apron’s slightly drunk cousin. “Louis! Perfect timing, we _just_ took the spaghetti off the stove...it’s cooling a bit, so come sit down!” 

She ushers them both into the kitchen, but Harry won't look him directly in the eye _all_ dinner, only picking at his food. Louis’s so shocked and worried that he’s moving on autopilot, mechanically twirling pasta around his fork and talking to Anne about his college plans, chugging iced tea if only to keep his hands and mouth occupied so that he doesn't have time to worry about what’s going on, about why Harry’s being so _quiet,_ why he keeps looking at Louis only to avert his gaze suddenly when Louis looks back, his eyes silently imploring, _What’s wrong?!_ He’s internally screaming, going over everything he’s done in the last twenty-four hours, wondering what it was that gave him away, exposed him. He’s done _something_ ;Harry’s stoic, lip-chewing broodiness seems to be directed exclusively at him. He’s putting on the happy face when his mom addresses him, accepting her praise with his usual put-upon but still totally complacent eye roll. Anne doesn't seem to notice anything out of the ordinary, doesn't seem to pick up on the way Harry frowns and stabs his meatball with his fork when she mentions how _glad_ she is that Louis’s here, that he has a friend like Louis. 

They finish dinner, and Louis busies himself with doing the dishes while Anne gushes over him some more. Harry disappears for a full three minutes, and Louis’s about to implode, fabricating a hundred potential scenarios to explain what's happening as he violently scrubs Anne’s wine glass, soapy up to his elbows. Maybe Harry thinks that his mom loves Louis too much, and he’s feeling jealous or something. Maybe he’s annoyed at all the attention that Louis’s getting on _his_ big day. Maybe it has nothing to do with Louis’s _clearly failed_ seduction attempts. 

But it’s more likely that he just _caught on_ to Louis’s blatant, excessive adoration and is feeling rightfully uncomfortable as a result. He hasn’t had time to let Louis down gently, and his mom is making shit awkward by inviting Louis to everything and being so nice to him and going on and on about how much she appreciates their friendship when in reality, _Harry_ knows their friendship is going to be short-lived because he’s about to smash Louis's heart into a million pieces. 

Louis feels sick and full of regret and like he wishes he hadn’t downed _quite_ so many glasses of iced tea when Harry finally emerges, eyes looking a little red behind the lenses of his glasses, forehead the tiniest bit blotchy, like he’s been crying. Louis supposes this means that he feels shitty and conflicted about the whole thing, and he’s not sure if that makes it better or worse. Like, he doesn’t _want_ Harry to feel guilty, he doesn’t _want_ more reasons to agonize over how fucking _sweet_ he is, how thoughtful, even when it comes to heartbreak and rejection and stuff. 

Harry approaches him tentatively, still managing to keep a distance, and Louis feels like he’s gonna throw up, so he shoves a stick of gum into his mouth like it might help. “Hey, Lou?” Harry sniffles, fiddling with a string on the hem of his t-shirt, which is heather gray and emblazoned with a graphic of the periodic table. Louis wants to lie beside him and inhale from his curls and trace every one of those letters across his chest. He doesn't want to be friend-broken-up with because he wants do all those things. He doesn’t want to be the sort of guy who pushes boys away because he wants them too badly.

“Yeah?” he says, voice thin and reedy because he’s not good at sounding fine when he’s not. 

“I...well, when you finish with those dishes, will you come up to my room? I have to talk to you about something,” he says like it pains him, and, _god,_ Louis was _right about everything._ Harry really is gonna tell him that he doesn't like him that way, that he’s sorry, that he didn't mean to lead him on or give him false hope or whatever deceptively polite things nice boys say when they’re busy destroying you. 

“I’m done now,” Louis tells him, deciding that he might as well just let it happen, rip the band-aid off so he can leave this house and Harry’s eyes dark and wet with apology. Maybe he can call Zayn; they can use his fake ID to buy a bottle of vodka, and he can spend the night crying into it, coughing on too-spicy cigarette smoke, and bemoaning his lonely future. “We can talk now...get it over with.” 

“I’m so sorry I’m acting weird,” Harry says quietly as they head up the stairs together, Louis’s feet heavy, ears ringing the further they move away from the sound of Anne’s voice as she takes a phone call. “I _know_ I am, and I know you probably have no idea what’s going on, so I just seem, like…super rude. And a shitty friend. Which I guess I am,” he announces miserably as they reach his room and he throws himself onto the bed dramatically, lying there with his face in his pillows while Louis stands at the door awkwardly, heart pounding so hard that he feels like his body is shuddering with it. “Will you close the door, please?” Harry asks, rolling onto his back and staring up at the ceiling with a dismayed pout. 

Louis does as he’s told, standing there in Harry’s locked room, feet planted and stomach alternating between plunging and roiling with nerves. 

“This is the hardest thing I've ever had to do,” Harry confesses in a small voice after a few moments of eviscerating silence. 

“Harder than getting up in front of a bunch of people and answering a question about the function of the vas deferens?” Louis jokes, trying to lighten the atmosphere, because even though he’s falling apart inside, unravelling into tiny, frayed bits of hurt, that’s who _he is._ It makes him sad to see Harry having such a hard time, to witness him feeling so visibly and palpably guilty, that he’d hasten his own heartbreak rather than watch him struggle. “S’okay,” he says gently, wishing he felt comfortable enough to sit down. “You can just…do what you need to do, I’m ready.” 

Harry makes a wordless groaning sound before he stands up and starts to pace his room. “Okay, ugh, god, I hate this,” he mutters, hands wrist-deep in his hair as he tugs fistfuls of curls. He’s frowning, his pretty mouth is downturned, and even like this, Louis thinks he’s so beautiful, wishes so _badly_ that he could grab him and hold him tight, help him feel better. “So I really, really, _really_ don’t want to do this, I wish there was a better way, but after today, I really don’t think I can stand it. I don’t think I can hang out with you so much anymore,” he blurts in a rush, and, _god,_ Louis feels so sick, gut knotting into a ball of self-recrimination. He _knew it_ , he fucking knew it. 

“Okay,” he whispers, voice sounding far away, underwater, not at all like himself. 

“And it’s _totally unfair_ because it’s not your fault at all, not one bit. You’re the most _wonderful,_ the best, the coolest, the _nicest_ friend ever, and I’m sure you’re like this with _everyone_ , it’s _on me_ that I’m making it...that I can’t handle this. I thought it would go away, I thought if we got closer, like, I’d get _over_ it, but that backfired, and it’s just gotten one hundred times worse, and I can hardly stand _looking_ you in the eye without—,” he cuts himself off and hides his face in his hands, breathing harshly through his nose like he’s trying to stop himself from crying. 

And Louis…Louis has _heard_ every word he’s said, he’s _listened_ , he just...he’s lost the plot a bit. He thinks it might be because Harry has omitted some crucial nouns from whatever he’s trying to say, but also, whatever is happening has diverted a bit from what Louis _thought_ Harry was going to say, and it’s confusing as hell as a result, so he’s just standing there, dumbstruck, trying to make sense of it. “You thought you’d get over…what, now, exactly?” he asks carefully, still expecting something like, _how much you stare at my mouth and flirt with me,_ and not at _all_ what Harry actually says. 

“You,” he mumbles flatly, voice clipped with frustration, muffled by his palms before he drops them. Louis’s still trying to process that when Harry makes another sound, the last thing that comes out of him before he allows the dam to break. “This is the worst, most awful, _embarrassing_ thing, Louis, and I’m _so,_ so sorry it happened,” he wails, shooting a terribly wounded look in Louis’s direction, like he’s about to confess to killing his dog or something. Instead, he takes a deep breath, and it all spills out. 

“The stupid, shitty truth is that I’ve had the most _enormous_ crush on you ever since you first walked into our bio class. Like, you were _so_ _hot_ and _way_ out of my league, and I _knew_ that, and I was never, ever planning on it getting this bad, but, like, then we ended up being lab partners? And you offered to study with me, and I thought, _maybe_ if I get to _actually_ _know_ him, my ridiculous crush will go away because, like, that happens, a lot, with straight boys, right? But you _weren’t_ straight, and you were even _more_ amazing and perfect and hilarious than I even realized, and, like, so _nice_ and _different_ than I thought you’d be? And I’m an _idiot_ , so instead of my crush going _away_ , I just liked you _more_ and more, and even though I _knew_ you didn’t feel the same way, that you thought my life philosophy was stupid and were basically only being my friend because you felt sorry for me, I just kept hanging out with you because I wanted to be close to you! And now I’m in _way_ too deep, and being around you is _so_ fucking hard because I’m totally, stupidly, _madly_ in love with you, Louis, and I’m so, so sorry,” he explodes in a rush before miserably cradling his face, shoving his fingers up between the lenses of his glasses and his eyes so that he can wipe his tears to keep them from fogging up the glass. 

Louis takes a step closer, and then another one, stunned that reality is remaining untouched around him, that nothing is shattering or changing or proving that all of this is a dream. He’s so close that he can smell Harry’s tears and shampoo, and it’s only when he gently, gently rests his hands on his quaking shoulders that he finds his voice again. “Harry,” he says in the softest voice, worried that he might break something if he’s any louder, that this will all end up a joke, a mistake. “Will you look at me?” 

Harry wipes his eyes, cleans his glasses, and sniffles, but he doesn't shift his eyes to meet Louis’s. “I _knew_ you would be so nice about this, that I’d feel even _worse,_ you’re so, you’re _so—_ ”

Louis can’t _stand_ it anymore _,_ so he cups Harry’s flushed face between his palms, tilts his chin down, and kisses him. 

Time stops. Harry stands there trembling, lips parted as Louis presses into him gently, mouth soft and careful as he kisses him once, twice, three times, everything hot and sweet with their nervous exhalations, the world reduced to heartbeats and breath. Harry doesn't kiss back, not at first. He just breathes, passive as Louis presses on, dizzy with longing, drunk on the salty smell of Harry’s tears, the heat of him so close and maddening. It’s not until the fourth slow, chaste kiss that Harry moves, his slack mouth falling open so that he can let out a breathy, shocked gasp. 

Louis’s tongue flicks out without him meaning to, and he smooths it over the underside of Harry’s plush upper lip, tasting him. It’s only then that Harry softens up and touches him back, his hands coming to rest with exploratory lightness on his stomach, experimental and awe-stricken, like he’s not sure this is really happening, like he doesn't believe that Louis’s really here. 

“Please don’t…don’t do this if you’re trying to be nice, if you feel sorry for me,” he whimpers, tilting away ever so slightly, leaving Louis huffing, shaky with longing. He finally meets Louis’s eyes, and his are so blown with pupil, so wet with tears that Louis feels like he's drowning in them. “I’m not, like, strong enough to stop you.” 

“Harry,” Louis breathes, letting go of his hot cheek to touch his lips, watching the way that Harry tilts into it, the way that he soaks up Louis’s touch like he’s starved. _God,_ he was so wrong about this, they both were. “I’m not out of your league, and I’m not friends with you because I feel _sorry_ for you...m’kissing you because I’m totally, stupidly, _madly_ in love with you, too.” 

Harry makes the smallest stunned sound, and Louis crushes it to nothingness in their kiss. He thinks of candy-spit and sweetness, and then he _has_ it, Harry opening up under him, clutching at his tank-top, pulling him flush and close so that he has to stand up on his tiptoes to slot their mouths together. Harry kisses like he's never done it before but doesn't know how to _stop_ , and the knowledge that this is his _first,_ his _only,_ makes Louis’s stomach turn over, he’s so moved. “Oh, my god,” Harry gasps as they break apart to breathe, stumbling. “I feel like I’m dreaming.” 

“You’re not, I promise,” Louis tells him, mouthing down his neck, stunned at the way his pulse is thundering, how insanely warm his skin is, like he’s burning up. “I love you, god, I love you so much,” he whispers, and Harry pitches forward and drags him up to kiss again, _hard_ , and it feels like he’s _everywhere,_ consumed by Harry like he’s been craving. He’s _obsessed_ with his smell, his big, clumsy hands all over Louis’s waist, the way his glasses dig into Louis’s cheek a bit when they kiss. His lips are so big and soft, he's so sloppy and needy, and Louis _loves_ it, _needs_ it. Before he even realizes what’s happening, they’re losing their balance together, nearly toppling over onto the carpet. 

“Shit,” he mumbles, clutching at Harry’s periodic table shirt. “Can we, um, move this to your bed? Or is this too fast, do you want to talk more—”

“Bed,” Harry announces, collapsing onto it and reaching for Louis, bright spots of color on his cheeks, eyes so green and bright that they seem unreal. “I always thought ‘weak-kneed’ was just an expression, but my knees are _literally_ weak, my legs are actually shaking, and I’m gonna faint or at least fall over if I don’t lie down,” he explains, shifting over to make space for Louis as he clambers onto the bed beside him. “Oh, my god, I can’t believe this is happening, Louis…you don't even _know_ how many times I’ve, like, thought about it. Wished for it.” 

Louis smoothes his hand through Harry’s soft curls and _kisses_ him, flicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth and making him groan sweetly. “It’s all _I_ think about,” he confesses, thumbing over Harry’s cheekbone. “I don't know how you didn’t know already, I thought…god, I thought you were gonna tell me that you needed space, that you knew how _I_ felt, and you were sorry but just wanted to be friends.” 

“ _No!_ I had no idea, you made it really clear that you didn’t think of me like that because you’d always get so annoyed when I tried to talk about sex with you. I thought _you thought_ I was just some nerdy kid, and you didn’t want me to get obsessed with you, even though I already was,” Harry tells him, reaching out and palming up Louis’s bare arms, squeezing his biceps with his mouth open like he can’t believe he gets to touch him the way he’s always _wanted_ to. 

Louis presses their foreheads together, twines their legs, and gets as close as he possibly can while still _looking_ at him. “I didn’t want to talk about sex with you because I was worried I’d get turned on. I knew I’d be obvious, and I was scared you wouldn’t want to hang out with _me_ if you found out. God, I thought I was _so_ transparent, you know? Why did you think I offered to help you study? Why did you think I surprised you at your quizathon? M’nice but not _that_ nice. It’s because I _like_ you...love you.” 

Harry tears up, and Louis likes it, likes that being hyper-emotional and wearing it all on your sleeve is just something that runs in Harry’s family. He thumbs at the tail of his eye, wiping away tears before they fall. “It just seems crazy, like, you’re so _hot_ and charming, and everyone loves you, and I’m...I like science, and I hang out with girls and I paint my nails and I’m always broken out and I’ve never even kissed a boy before tonight. I thought you were maybe dating your friend Zayn, I mean, he’s _gorgeous_ compared to me. I still don’t believe this is real, to be honest.” 

Louis scoffs, shaking his head so that their brows rub together. “Harry, you're _so_ hot to me, like, absolutely perfect, and I’ve thought so since I first saw you, I promise. Zayn’s just my friend, and half the time we hang out, I’m crying about you. I made him go to the craft store with me to make those signs that I brought to the quizathon. Since day one, all I’ve wanted is this, right here, to kiss _you.”_

Harry gets quiet, swallowing a few times before closing his eyes, letting the sweetest, most ecstatic smile spread across his face. It makes Louis dizzy to look at, so he leans in and kisses his dimple instead. “You’ll be patient with me?” Harry asks, breath hot against Louis’s chin. “I’ve never done anything before, m’probably bad at kissing, and maybe you’re already disappointed, or—”

Louis kisses Harry quiet, tugging on his bottom lip with his teeth before licking the sting away, so hungry for him. “I _love_ kissing you, it’s perfect, better than I dreamed of,” he assures him, their mouths ghosting together. “And listen, I _love_ you, like, I positively _adore you._ We can go as slowly as you want, and I’ll still feel like the luckiest boy in the world.” 

Harry whimpers, tangling their legs tighter so that he presses up against Louis’s thigh, something close to a proper _grind._ It stops Louis’s heart. “I don’t wanna go _slowly,”_ Harry growls, sliding his hand into the wide cut of Louis’s sleeve to touch his bare skin, tentative but certain all the same. “That’s not what I meant...more like will you please still want me, even if I’m bad at stuff?” 

Louis’s stomach drops, cock twitching in his too-tight pants. “Oh, fuck,” he rasps, kissing Harry hard, sliding their tongues together wet and hot and delicious before pulling away just enough to tell him, “M’pretty sure there’s nothing you can do to make me _not_ want you. I also think it’s impossible for you to be bad at stuff when I’m this crazy for you, okay?” 

“Okay,” Harry agrees before boldly rolling Louis onto his back and straddling him. And then they’re kissing again, deep and wet and graceless, and it’s _so fucking good,_ and Louis’s hands are all over Harry’s back, their hips are shifting together, and Louis forgets everything but Harry’s name for a little while, the universe reduced to soft skin and the smell of his hair and the torn-up, cut-off sounds of his little gasps and moans. 

—-

They make out and roll around on the bed for god knows how long, but Louis is distantly aware that it’s getting late. The world outside has gotten quiet, but he doesn't quite register that fact as much as he registers how much _louder_ Harry sounds in comparison, how the low, burnt-sugar heat of his voice seems purer now that there are no cars driving around below them, no barking dogs, _nothing_. 

Their clothes are still on, but Louis’s so hard and has been for so long that his briefs are wet and clinging to the head of his cock. He keeps wondering if he should pause to get his pants off and change into something else, but then he'll remember that he's at Harry’s house and not his own, so he has nothing to change into, and then Harry will kiss him blind and stupid and deep again, and he’ll forget all about it. Harry’s hard, too, Louis keeps feeling it rub up against his thigh maddeningly hot and surprisingly _big,_ but he’s too scared to touch him first. If Harry wants that, he’s got to ask for it or make the first move, so they just kiss and kiss until Louis’s lips feel raw, Harry’s cheeks feel scoured from Louis’s stubble, both of their chins are spit-wet. It’s heaven, a dream, and Louis never wants to wake up. 

Louis has his hand bravely up Harry’s shirt to clutch at his ribcage when they’re startled apart by a knock on the door. “Boys? Are you alright? It’s almost midnight.” 

“Shit,” Louis yelps, springing away and feeling _very_ caught, Anne’s voice bringing the harsh bite of the real world so quickly that he sways. He told his mum that he would text to let her know how it was going, and he hasn’t. He should probably have driven home an hour ago, and he hasn’t. He’s been doing _nothing at all_ but kissing Harry Styles for _hours_ , and even if he can’t regret that, he can admit that he probably should have taken a short pause to get his affairs in order. 

“Are you two... _drinking_?!” Anne hisses, and then she tries the door. Thankfully, it’s still locked because Louis imagines that they look pretty incriminating right now, Harry flat on his back and panting with his glasses on the bedside table, his shirt rucked up, his hair an absolute mess, Louis all swollen-mouthed and tenting his jeans. 

They’re not drunk, but they might as well be. Anne rattles the door knob, and Harry recovers enough to yell, “ _Mom,_ no! We’re…we’re just—”

“Look…Harry, it’s okay if you are. You’re celebrating, and you’re home safe, and I know you two boys aren't dumb enough to go looking for trouble. Hell, I started drinking in high school, too,” she chuckles, voice muffled from the other side of the door, and Harry looks _mortified,_ catching Louis’s eyes in a stunned exchange before hiding his face in his hands. “So, if you’re doing that, it’s _fine,_ but I _cannot_ let Louis drive home this late and _certainly not_ if he’s drunk. Louis, call your mom and let her know that you’re staying the night.” 

“Oh, my god,” Harry groans, grabbing his pillow and putting it in front of his crotch as he hops out of bed, trying to fix his hair with one hand. “ _Mom,_ we’re not drinking.” 

“But I’d _love_ to sleep over,” Louis chimes in, finally recovering his voice. As much as he dislikes the idea of Anne catching him feeding her son alcohol, it’s not half as bad as her catching him with his tongue down Harry’s throat. Plus, any excuse to stay over, he’s willing to jump on. 

Harry unlocks the door and opens it a crack, squinting at his mom. “We were just talking.” 

She sniffs the air, looking over Harry’s shoulder to peer at Louis. “So, not drinking, but you’re getting _stoned..._ your eyes are bloodshot, Harry, _please,_ I’d rather you just be honest if you’re going to smoke in the house,” she sighs, throwing the door open. “Air it out in here! And Louis, call your mom, high driving is just as bad as drunk driving.” 

Standing in the doorway with her arms crossed, she waits for Louis to find his phone in his jacket pocket and hammer out a text to his mom. _sleeping over at Harrys :)))_ he types, adding the praying hands emoji and some glitter. _Will be safe, don't worry._

In record time, she sends back ten eye emojis and _cant wait to hear all about it…actually, not ALL about it. good luck and i love u and USE CONDOM!_

He blushes fiercely, sets his phone down, and tells Anne, “Done...thanks for being a cool mom.”

That makes her smile. “Night boys, and, remember, if you get paranoid, don’t do anything weird, just drink water and wait for it to pass.” 

She leaves them with this pearl of weed wisdom, and Harry stands braced in the doorframe until she disappears as Louis collapses backward onto the bed, letting out a long, pained sigh. “Well, _that_ was both lucky and horrifying.” 

Harry dissolves into somewhat hysterical laughter, sinking down onto the floor where he sits with his legs akimbo, shoulders rocking. “Oh, _god,”_ he wheezes, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “I wasn’t wearing my glasses, so I don’t know for _sure_ , but I think she actually believes herself?” 

“She most _definitely_ does,” Louis snorts. “Your eyes _are_ a little red, probably from crying, I think, but it’s not that far-fetched a theory. I’m just glad she didn't actually figure us out and kick me to the curb.” 

“I don't think she’d do _that,_ she _loves_ you, she’d be thrilled to know we’re dating…wait, are we dating? Does this make us boyfriends?” Harry suddenly asks, voice dropping to a whisper as he shuts the door again. “I don’t want to _assume—_ ”

 _“_ I mean, I’d like that...I’d like it a lot,” Louis admits, eyes on the floor. He was feeling totally fine when they were making out, but now that Harry’s all the way across the room, he's less sure. 

“I’d _love_ that,” Harry agrees, crawling across the floor on all fours, picking his way carefully since he can’t see. “If my mom knew, she’d be happy, but she also wouldn’t invite you to sleep over, so maybe we shouldn't tell her just yet?” 

“Good thinking, Harold,” Louis grins, taking his belt off since it’s gotten pretty uncomfortable. Harry watches from the floor, eyes wide. 

“That is, if you _want_ to sleep over. M’sure you could wait until she falls asleep and drive back, if you wanted to—”

“Do _you_ want me to?” Louis asks suddenly, worried that he’s gotten too comfortable, that he’s pushing too hard, moving things along too quickly. _Be patient with me_ , he remembers Harry pleading, so quiet and sweet. “I want to spend as much time with you as possible, but if you think—”

“Oh, god, no! _No,_ I desperately want you to, I literally wanna cry when I think about sleeping without you it’s just, ugh, m’so insecure about this, Louis...I still think I’m dreaming. Like, right now, just looking at you in my room, in my bed, I’m, like, feeling as if I dreamt this up. It’s too good to be true.” 

Louis holds out his hands and hauls Harry to his feet, pulling him closer and closer until he's standing at the edge of the bed, body fit between Louis’s splayed thighs. “I feel the same way,” he tells him, thumbing over the birthmark on Harry’s wrist, thinking about kissing it. Then he remembers that he _can,_ so he raises that wrist to his lips and presses it to them gently, feeling Harry's pulse speed up in his hand. “I’m still so surprised and overwhelmed and, like, _doubtful_ , I guess, because I’ve wanted you for so long and so badly. I told myself so many times that it was probably never gonna happen that I’m, like, half-programmed to think you’re just messing with me.” 

“I’d never do that,” Harry says quietly, burying his face in Louis's hair. “I love you.” 

“I love you, too. Guess we’ll just have to kiss each other a hundred times more in order to convince ourselves,” he teases, reaching out and spreading his hand over the periodic table on Harry’s chest, feeling for the frantic thud of his heart. 

“Please,” Harry mewls, pressing into the touch. “This is dumb, but, like, I really want to shower first before we go to bed and…do stuff. I don't want to feel any more insecure than I already am.” 

“Two things,” Louis announces, standing unsteadily and stealing a kiss from Harry. “One, I absolutely love the way you smell and want to bury my face in your armpit, but if you _must_ shower, I fully support this decision. Two, I also sort of want to shower, so if you do, I will. Not in the same shower, of course, not unless you want that.” 

Harry blushes, and Louis can feel the heat of it since they’re standing with their faces so close. He badly wants another kiss, but before he can lean in and get one, Harry pulls away, trips to the bed, and flops backward onto it. There he lies for a moment before decidedly and deliberately tugging his shirt over his head and then settling back onto the rumpled bedspread, arms up over his head. 

Louis stares and swallows, his mouth suddenly filled up with saliva. He’s never seen Harry shirtless, and it’s _so_ delicious that he feels overcome, every fiber of his being longing to bite, suck, lick, _touch._ Harry’s slight without being skinny, toned without being muscular, pale all over with soft, puffy nipples, and, _god,_ Louis can’t even _believe_ that he’s allowed to look at him, let alone kiss him. “Uh,” he stammers. “We _were_ talking about stuff, but now I can’t formulate thoughts, so…” 

“I’m trying to, uh, actively combat my anxieties that I smell, that you aren’t actually attracted to me, that my body is weird by lying on my bed half-naked and waiting for you to come kiss me again,” he explains, covering up his chest with his palms and coloring. “Just fyi, I have four nipples, these two normal ones and then two weird little ones down here,” he adds, pointing them out. “I also have girly love handles that I used to hate but sort of am fine with now? At least in part because you, um, make me feel a lot better about stuff like that.” 

Louis is moving in slow-motion, lowering himself onto the bed and drinking Harry in, his soft hips and the dusting of hair below his belly button and the way his chest is rapidly expanding and contracting with each anxious breath. “Jesus _Christ,_ Harry, you’re so fucking beautiful,” he marvels, reaching out and palming down his sides reverently, digging thumbs into his hip bones. “Can I, like…kiss you? On your body?” he clarifies, and it sounds stupid as it comes out, but Harry just nods, shivering, not looking like _he_ thinks it’s stupid at all. 

Lowering his mouth to Harry’s warm skin, Louis feels his heart pick up in his chest, and he’s _stunned_ that this is happening, that only a few hours ago, he was convinced they were never going to be friends again, and _now_ he’s licking his way up Harry’s shuddering stomach, feeling his abdominals flex. “God, you’re so…you taste so good,” he groans, loving how Harry writhes, pushes up into the heat of his mouth, arching his back and gasping. “I love…what did you call these? Your love handles?” he asks, palming and squeezing at the cute little swells of flesh over the waistband of Harry’s jeans. 

“Yeah,” Harry whimpers, rolling his hips in the air. “You like them?” 

“Love them, _fuck_ ,” Louis hisses, bending to raze his teeth over the left side, moved by how Harry’s skin pinks up. “So sexy...love that you have curves, love every bit of you,” he breathes into his skin, kissing up his waist, making him squirm. “Love all four of your nipples. Do they have names?” Louis asks, grinning as he rubs his cheek into Harry’s sternum. 

Harry whines, covering the two most obvious ones. “No!” 

“M’gonna have to name ‘em, then,” Louis declares, moving Harry’s hands so that he can flick his tongue over the left one, making the soft, puffiness harden into a point to suck on. Harry keens, running his fingers through Louis’s hair and twisting under him, bucking. 

“You feel so good,” Harry slurs, voice low and thick. “I want…fuck, _god,_ I want so many different things.” And Louis thinks that’s all he’s gonna say, that he’ll have to needle into Harry a bit more to find out the specifics of what he wants, but he’s _wrong._ Harry pulls Louis up by his hair, brushes his soft, swollen lips against the shell of his ear, and whispers, “But mostly, most of all, I wanna blow you, Lou.” 

Louis freezes, cock flexing in his pants so hard that he _aches,_ breath catching in his throat. “You… _what_?!” he asks, thinking that he must have misheard him, that he _can’t_ have said what Louis thinks he did. 

But then Harry licks wetly up his neck before sucking right behind his ear, mouth searing and slick. “I want _so badly_ to have you in my mouth,” he repeats, palming over Louis’s back, then lower, to his ass. It’s so bold that Louis doesn't even know what to _do._ “You want me to? Have you…thought about it?” 

“I...fuck,” Louis grunts, shaking his head, nuzzling hungrily into Harry’s neck, inhaling from him. The truth is that for all the time he’s spent staring at and fantasizing about Harry’s luscious mouth, he hasn't thought specifically or in much depth about _that,_ exactly. Not because he doesn't want it—now that Harry’s brought it up, his mind is _alight_ with one hundred vivid fantasies—but because it seemed unfair to Harry and to himself, to dream of something so unthinkably intimate when they hadn’t even _kissed._ Most of his idle thoughts about Harry when he jacked off were about blowing _him,_ about pleasing _him,_ Louis on his knees teaching Harry how to feel good. He’s never considered being on the receiving end, even when he was forced to reckon with his lips that day they were paired together in lab and he had to feed him candy. He’s never _hoped_ for something so miraculous as Harry wanting to get him off _,_ as he’s spent much of his time imagining getting off on _Harry_ getting off. It’s shocking and exciting but also seems impossible. “ _Of course_ I want you to, god, I want…I want everything with you, Harry. _Everything_.” 

Harry shivers, catches Louis’s kiss in a sloppy kiss, all tongue and teeth and gales of breath. “Me, too,” he mewls. “I think...well, I haven’t _done_ anything yet, so it might not be _good,_ but you could show me how. I’d like that.” 

“Jesus,” Louis gasps, pressing his face into Harry’s pulse. “I’ll show you, if you wanted to learn. I’m, like...reeling though, because I mostly thought of doing that stuff to _you,_ ” he admits, dizzy with Harry’s smell _,_ not able to stop licking at his sweat, palming over his soft, perspiration-damp skin.

 _“_ Why?!” Harry asks, peeling back to look Louis in the eye, licking his lips. “Is it because none of the guys you messed around with before ever did that to you? Because, fuck, when you told me that, I wanted to do it even _more._ Makes me so madto think that any guy wouldn’t want to when I’ve _dreamt_ of it, when I want it so badly. Ever since you blindfolded me and put the candy in my mouth I’ve thought about…other things, like you tying me up and feeding me your cock, you having me suck—”

“Oh, my _god,_ Harry,” Louis rasps, stomach twisting so hard that he actually flinches, fists tightening on Harry’s hips, dragging him closer. “You’re driving me absolutely _crazy,_ ”he whines before kissing Harry deeply, licking into his mouth. Harry catches his tongue and sucks, mimicking what he’s talking about, and it’s almost _too much. “_ Fuck, I need to get out of my pants, they're so tight they hurt.” 

“ _Please_ ,”Harry grinds out, chewing his lip. “I want to see you...your _legs..._ so badly I could _die._ ” 

“Jesus,” Louis says again, feeling like his vocabulary has been whittled down to _Harry_ , profanity, and taking the lord’s name in vain. He hops off the bed, desperate to get back to Harry, to have more _skin_ flush and rubbing together. Harry watches with wide eyes, hand moving down to unbutton his own jeans. Louis thinks that he’s gonna wiggle out of them, but instead he shoves his hand down the front and just touches himself, shy but too desperate to care. “God, I thought…I thought you were, like, innocent.” 

“I said I had no _experience_ ,not that I was _innocent_ ,” Harry clarifies, eyes all over Louis’s body as he feels his own cock out, hand shifting beneath the fabric of his briefs. _God,_ Louis’s drooling, his hands clumsy as he pulls his shirt off. 

“Innocence is _defined_ as lack of experience...didn't William Blake say that?” he muses, crawling back into bed, shivering now that he’s wearing nothing but his briefs, which are clingy and black and _wet_ and doing absolutely nothing to hide his erection. Harry’s chewing his lip as he stares, and it makes Louis feel hot all over. 

“I’m more of a science nerd...can’t say I paid much attention during English,” Harry quips, voice teasing because Louis knows full well that he gets As in all his classes and pays attention to _everything._ “I think it’s really hot that you just quoted William Blake to me, though,” he adds as he reaches for Louis, smoothing his hands down his arms, thumbing into his lithe muscles, eyes still fixed between his legs where his cock is tenting black fabric. “I promise I’m not a prude just because I’ve never done anything before. It’s only because I never had the opportunity...I _want_ to do so many things, so badly.” 

“Um, what sorts of things are we talking about, besides blow jobs? You mentioned _tying up?_ ”Louis asks, voice reedy. He’s super turned on by the idea of something so dirty and wild, but at the same time, he’s also worried because it’s not like he’s _that_ much more experienced than Harry and _definitely not_ at advanced gay-sex stuff like _bondage._ Maybe in a few months, after watching some online tutorials, but not _tonight._ He doesn't want to disappoint Harry or get in over his head. 

Harry blushes and sort of squeaks, and then they’re kissing again, messy and hot, and Louis forgets his fears for a moment because it’s _so_ hard to think or worry about anything when Harry’s big, soft, wet mouth is all over him, lips so plush and open and giving. “Yes, tying up...no pressure, though!” he moans as he pulls away, Louis chasing him, wanting more. “I’ve…well, I’ve watched a lot of gay porn, and I read a lot of kinky fanfiction,” he confesses. 

Louis’s brain sort of flatlines.

“Kinky _fanfiction?_ ”he gasps, scandalized, words muffled as Harry ducks close, lips still ghosting against his own. 

“Yes,” Harry admits, cheeks aflame. “I know that’s not—”

“Don’t say it’s not attractive because it _is,_ ”Louis assures him. “What sort of fanfiction? What sort of kinky?” 

“Oh, god, like, werewolf stuff? But I’m not into _that_ specifically as much as m’into, I dunno, being told what to do, held down, _fucked,_ that sort of thing. More than anything, Louis, I wanna make you feel _good,_ m’here for you to use, basically,” he explains, and it comes out low and soft and vulnerable, like he _wants_ Louis to ruin him, to take him apart. 

Louis’s brain is imploding, and when such things happen, it’s impossible to _speak,_ so he just makes a wordless groaning sound against the corner of Harry’s mouth before kissing the rest, fucking his sweet lips open on his tongue, dizzy and desperate. “Fuck,” he wheezes, making fists in Harry's jeans now that they've been loosened by unbuttoning. “That’s so…Jesus, it’s really hot, actually. And I want that, too, wanna explore those things with you, but you should know that the stuff I've done with other guys, well, it isn't exactly helpful. With that. With tying up and werewolves and whatnot, I mean.” 

“That’s okay,” Harry pants, lips all over Louis’s throat before he arches up for another kiss. “Even this, making out and touching you and…getting to suck you off, maybe, if you let me? That’s... _god,_ it’s all I’ve ever wanted.” 

“Alright,” Louis murmurs, inhaling Harry's breaths, grinding against him slowly, subtly. “I gotta admit, m’like, _shy_ about letting you do that, first thing, instead of doing it to you,” he clarifies, bravely palming down to Harry's waistband and hooking his fingers into it. “But I’ll let you, if you want.” 

“Oh, Lou,” Harry sighs, nipping at his lower lip. “Please, I want to...so, _so_ badly.” 

And time stops or speeds up or becomes inconsequential, Louis isn't sure because all he knows is that Harry’s kissing him, and he tastes amazing, his smell is all around him, and it’s so intoxicating that he can’t _think,_ he can only feel. Harry lets him suck his tongue, lets him spread him out on the sheets so that he can rub greedy palms all over his chest, his ribs, his hips, his _thighs._ It’s only when Harry is whimpering and grinding his hard cock solidly and deliberately on Louis’s thigh that he finally reels back, gasping. “M’gonna come if I don’t stop,” he moans, and Louis doesn’t _care,_ wants him coming right there, against him, burning and abandoned. 

“You can,” Louis tells him, squeezing his hips where he’s soft above his waistline. “I’d lick it up.” 

“I know you would, but that’s not…not what I want, I want _you_ to come, to come in my mouth,” Harry babbles, licking up the cords on Louis’s throat. And Louis is _weak,_ can’t say no when Harry wants it so badly, when his mouth is so needy, so sucking and sweet and heavenly. 

“Okay, fuck, yeah, you can, but if you don’t like it, just stop, I won’t be offended,” he grits out, rubbing the heels of his hands into his eyes until they explode in static. “Just let me know.” 

Harry rolls onto his hands and knees and kisses hungrily down Louis’s stomach until he gets to his waistband, which he gets in his teeth, brow furrowed, wrecked. “Can I…can I get on my knees on the floor? Between your legs while you sit on the edge of the bed? That's always how I’ve imagined it.” 

“Yeah?” Louis asks brokenly, scooting to the side and letting his legs hang over, feeling very exposed and broken open. He doesn't care, though, he wants Harry too badly to think about this, to talk himself out of it. “Like this?” 

“Oh, _god,_ yes, just like this,” Harry moans, sinking down onto the floor, hands clutching, mouth open and panting. His hands alight featherlight on Louis’s thighs as he spreads them to accommodate his shoulders, feeling his quads out, hands broad, gentle, exploratory, _desperate_. Louis can hardly _believe_ it, the way he looks, so angelic with his pink lips glistening in saliva, his eyes wide and reverent. 

“Harry, you’re so pretty,” Louis slurs, fingers combing through his curls. “You can have whatever you want.” 

Harry closes his eyes and ducks in, pressing his soft face into the junction of Louis’s thighs and just _inhaling,_ from where he’s hard, where he’s thick and twitching and slick with each subsequent pulse. He just stays there for a bit, kissing and sniffling and rubbing his palms all over everything that he can reach as Louis fists into the duvet, _astounded_ that this is happening, that Harry wants him so badly, that he can _feel_ it, his hunger, his pure, undistilled adoration. 

It nearly knocks Louis out, sends him sprawling on his back again, Harry working his hard length through the gap in his boxers slowly, kissing him through his shorts, making the fabric spit-wet before he even makes contact with skin. 

The second that it happens, Louis’s heart stops. It’s gentle and unsure, Harry just flicking his sweet, hot-wet tongue out to taste along his shaft, the movement careful and tentative. Louis freezes and gasps, flexing his toes against the carpet while his breath comes out in a labored wreck. “Oh, _god,”_ he keens, tightening his grip in Harry’s silken curls. “That’s so good…fucking unreal.” 

“Yeah?” Harry asks, breath coming out in a humid huff on Louis, making him twitch. “It’s good already?” 

“Amazing,” Louis assures him, further freeing his cock from his briefs, pushing himself through the hole in the fabric so that it gathers around his balls and Harry has more to _suck_ , more to get his lips around. It feels absurdly dirty to offer him this, to feed him his cock while he’s still half in his clothes, but Harry clearly _loves_ it. His eyes are shut tightly in this _moved_ sort of way, mouth so wide and drooling and hungry that it’s all Louis can do to keep from fucking up into the slick heat of it. “It’s okay for you?” he asks, sounding strangled. 

“Louis,” Harry murmurs, visibly palming himself through his jeans as he takes Louis in his other hand, nothing but the red, shining crown of his cock visible in the ring of his fist. “This is, like, all I’ve ever wanted in my whole life. It’s perfect.” 

And then, without preamble, he takes what’s exposed of Louis’s cock and fits his mouth over it fully, tongue swirling. 

It’s the sharpest thing, the slickest, the softest. Louis dissolves into the incredible burn of it, the flood of sensation as Harry sucks gently, kitten licks right into the slit of his cock, the vibration of a tiny, hungry moan humming around him. He’s never felt anything so incomprehensibly _wet_ , so nervy, and he can’t believe something so good is happening to him. “Baby,” he hisses, without even meaning to, hips stuttering. “You feel so fucking good, m’gonna come soon, gonna—”

“Oh, _please,_ ”Harry whines, mouth making an obscene sound as he pops off Louis’s cock in a froth of spit. “I wanna swallow your come, fuck my mouth,” he begs before diving back in to lap at Louis, everything about him the picture of desperation. It feels amazing, but even just _looking_ at him is unbearable, Louis wants him too badly, has loved him for too long, all he can do is rhythmically pet his curls as Harry sucks and licks and drools until he can't survive it anymore. 

He clutches one fist in Harry’s sheets and the other in the soft mess of his hair and lifts his hips to fuck the searing ring of his mouth, and that’s it. He’s emptying himself, crying out in a strangled gasp as he loses it in thick, messy pulses down Harry’s throat before Harry gags a bit and pulls away, the last of Louis’s come landing on his flushed cheek. Louis would worry if Harry wasn't beaming so widely, dimple deep and perfect under the ribbon of white, pink tongue poking out of his mouth to tongue at his cheek. “Fuck,” he whispers, sounding awed. “I made you come.” 

“So, so hard,” Louis admits breathlessly before flopping bonelessly back onto the bed, vision hazy, heart choked up into his throat with a wild sort of elation. “Oh, my _god,_ Harry, I didn’t even _know_ I could come so hard.” 

Harry makes a wordless sound, then he’s kissing up Louis’s thighs, mouth so soft and swollen and wrecked from sucking, breath labored and uneven. “ _God,_ you taste so good, don't wanna stop,” he murmurs, sliding his hands down Louis’s legs and squeezing his calves.

“Come up here,” Louis pleads, holding out his trembling hands. “Let me kiss you, I... _fuck_ , Harry. I can’t believe you’re real, you’re here, that I get to love you and stuff.” 

Harry rubs up against him, their chests pressed together, the wild thrum of their hearts in tandem as they kiss and kiss and kiss, hands everywhere like there isn’t enough time in the world to touch each other. “I love _you,_ m’lucky to love _you,_ ”Harry rambles nonsensically, grinding his hard cock into Louis’s stomach, making him absolutely mad with longing as he feels it. Fuck, _he_ made Harry wild like this, he’s turned him on so, _so_ much just by giving him his cock to suck. 

“You’re hard,” he marvels, fitting his hand between them just to palm at his abdominals, yearning for more. “Can I touch?” 

“Oh, fuck, _yes,_ please,” Harry whimpers, mouth open on Louis’s throat. “M’close, all you’re gonna have to do is touch me a bit, give me your palm, and I’ll…I won’t be able to last, you drive me fucking crazy.” 

Louis half-thinks he's exaggerating, that it’s only for his _own_ pleasure to satisfy his _own_ impatience that he’s touching Harry’s cock at this awkward angle, but when he gets his hand down his jeans and briefs to cup him unobstructed, he can _tell_ how close he is, what a _mess_ he’s made of Harry. 

Harry sobs into his shoulder, arching his back and thrusting against him in shuddering, wanton bucks, pushing the searing heat of his cock into Louis’s hand once, twice, three times before he’s twitching. “Oh, _god,_ I’m sorry, if I move again I’ll come,” he chokes out, drooling all over Louis, so lost, so perfect. 

“That’s _good,_ I want it, come for me, baby,” Louis begs, and Harry’s humping him again, and then he’s spilling white-hot and sticky into his palm, and it’s _perfect,_ like a baptismal, like the tide. Louis holds him tight with one arm looped around his lower back and feels him out as he shudders to finish in his other hand, raw and real and so, so lovely. “Harry, _baby,_ god, yes, give it to me,” he rasps, eyes burning with an embarrassing, sudden onslaught of tears. 

Harry shakes for a long time on top of him, breath cut-off and staggered before he collapses, crushing all the air out of Louis. “Ugh,” he groans. “That was _so_ good...but also so fast, I feel like a teenager.” 

“You _are_ a teenager,” Louis reminds him, giddy as he squeezes his waist. “I don’t have, like, high expectations for your longevity, just your endurance over time, so you better not be done for tonight,” he says, partially joking and _giddy_ with it, but Harry pulls back to regard him very seriously, eyes tear-bleary and impossibly green. 

“I’m not even _close_ to done...the second you came, I wanted more,” he admits, licking his lips. “I wanna stay up all night with you.” 

Louis works his hand out between them as it’s starting to go numb, thrilled that it’s wet and sticky with Harry, so fucking happy that he’s _covered_ in him, his spit and his kisses and his come. It’s the best thing in the world. “Good,” he murmurs. “Because m’gonna be really sad if I don’t get to suck you off, too.” 

Harry blushes and rolls off him, and together they lie, side by side and giggling and mussed up, like everything is hilarious, like everything is magical. And it is, when you’re in love, Louis’s sure of it. “Hi,” he says dumbly, kissing Harry’s pretty lips soft and slow. “I’m so happy.” 

Harry beams, and Louis licks his dimple. “I’m the happiest person there is,” he tells him, petting Louis’s hair gently, carefully, with the sort of awed slowness that suggests he’s still not totally convinced this is happening. “My heart is so big that my ribs hurt from holding it in.” 

_Me, too,_ Louis thinks, but he’s too choked up to say it out loud. Instead, they hold each other for awhile, hands roaming absently across hips and ribs and shoulder blades until Louis gets his voice back and manages to say, “Hey, so, about those showers…maybe we can do that now? We could share one since we’ve seen each other mostly naked.” 

“I’d like that,” Harry murmurs sleepily. “You can borrow a towel. And PJs. Unless you wanna just sleep naked, which I’d prefer, to be honest.’ 

“Skinny-dip-sleeping it is, then,” Louis mumbles, pretty sure that he’s not making sense and not even _caring_. “Harry, we’re boyfriends now, right?” he asks, just to be sure. He has to _know,_ even if he knows. Even if Harry said it already, he needs the certainty of those words again, burnt indelibly into his skin. _Boyfriends,_ not some incidental, accidental convergence. 

“Yes,” Harry confirms shyly, kissing his chin. “Boyfriends. And study-buddies. And lab partners. Though you don’t need to have an excuse to feed me Lifesavers, not anymore.” 

Louis kisses him, chest tight with the wild fury of everything he’s trying to contain inside, every terrible, world-ending surge of love. “M’gonna take you up on that,” he promises. “Also, tomorrow’s Saturday...are you busy?” he asks, even though he’s pretty surethat Harry isn’t. 

“If sleeping in with you because I’ve spent all night sucking your cock counts as busy, then yeah, I’m busy,” he jokes, and Louis is so dually excited and offended that he has to grab him around the waist and bite his shoulder. 

“Oh, my god, you’re so dirty!” he gasps. “I _was_ gonna suggest we go on, like, a proper date as boyfriends since we haven't yet. Get a coffee, walk in the park, see a movie, visit a museum, have dinner, do some karaoke…whatever you want. Just, like, the sort of date people go on when they’re in love,” he finishes lamely, feeling his cheeks heat up. “If I can borrow a real, not cut-up shirt from you, I mean.” 

Harry’s quiet for a moment, eyes wide and glistening, and Louis’s heart stops at how perfectly lovely he is, his pink cheeks, his arched brows, the way his hair smells like fruit and sweetness and the promise of one hundred tomorrows. “I’d really, really love that,” he whispers after a minute, pitching forward and stealing a kiss. “As long as we stop at a gas station at some point and pick up some Lifesavers,” he adds. “For old times sake.”


End file.
